The super-rich are being encouraged to make multi-million-pound donations to their former universities in an attempt to recreate 19th-century levels of educational philanthropy and civic engagement.

John Denham, the Universities Secretary, said that graduates who had built up great financial wealth in the City or in industry had a responsibility to give something back in order to help others.

Today he will announce a £200 million matched funding scheme. The aim is to help universities to create endowments worth billions of pounds to rival their American counterparts. The money would be used to help students from deprived backgrounds.

“Successful people have a responsibility to enable other people to share similar opportunities,” Mr Denham told The Times. “I would like all graduates to give. But the real challenge is to attract the people who have done amazingly well and who have the ability to make significant donations and to put something back into society.”

Under the scheme, from August 1 the Government will pledge to match donations, made in cash or in shares, over the next three years.

There will be three tiers - under the top tier, the Government will match pound for pound all qualifying donations made to the university, up to a limit expected to be about £100,000. Those universities opting for the second tier will receive £1 from the state for every £2 raised from donors, up to an expected maximum of about £2 million. The last tier will offer universities £1 for every £3 they raise, with a cap on government contributions expected at £5 million. Oxford and Cambridge, by far the biggest university fundraisers in Britain, have already signed up to this option.

The aim is that the scheme will help to raise £600 million, with £200 million coming from state coffers.

British universities now receive donations of more than £200 million a year, with at least 50 institutions actively engaged in fundraising, up from £100 million raised by 20 institutions in 2001. This is dwarfed by the sums raised by US universities, which got nearly $14 billion (£7.05 billion) from individual donors last year.

Pam Tatlow, of the university think-tank Million+, said that the richest universities might be the biggest beneficiaries. “This is public money and it must not be skewed in ways that benefit institutions that are already extremely well off.”

Britain v US

— The founding of the University of Edinburgh is attributed to Bishop Robert Reid of Kirkwall, Orkney, who died in 1558. The university’s endowment is thought to be £160 million, the third largest in Britain, equal to £9,000 for each of its 17,600 students

— Princeton has an endowment of $15.8 billion, the largest per-student endowment in the world, working out at £812,500 per each of its 6,400 students

— Edinburgh graduates include Gordon Brown and Charles Darwin

— Princeton alumni include John F. Kennedy and F. Scott Fitzgerald

Source: Sutton Trust, Times Database

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