British universities have been notoriously bad at extracting donations from their alumni. This was highlighted by Sir Peter Lampl, the philanthropist and a member of the original task force set up by the Government to find ways of increasing donations. He said: “No one will give unless they are asked.” The problem in Britain was that universities simply were not asking.

In the past couple of years that has started to change. Stung into action by the impressive multimillion-dollar donations and investment returns achieved by US institutions such as Yale and Harvard, most big universities have set up fundraising operations, with their sights set firmly on their graduates. Cambridge is aiming to raise £1 billion by 2012 and Oxford’s target is £1.25 billion. Individual donations provide a neat way of completing the jigsaw of funding after the introduction of tuition fees. They allow universities to build up endowments with which to fund poor students, while reducing dependence on government subsidies — and interference.

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