University challenge ... Oxford's dreaming spires. Photograph: Adam Woolfitt/Corbis
Oxford is far richer than all other British universities, bar one - does it really need more money?
Not if you compare it to other UK universities, but then Oxford compares itself with the American Ivy League institutions like Harvard and Stanford which can outspend it many times over. World-class quality higher education does not come cheap, the university argues.
Today it launches an ambitious appeal for £1.25bn; this won't put it in the Harvard league overnight, but it may at least catch up with Cambridge which is two-thirds of the way towards its £1bn appeal.
The government is trying to encourage all UK universities to raise more money from alumni and private benefactors and has concocted a fiendishly complicated scheme of matched funding as an incentive.
It was 20 years ago that Oxford launched the first major modern fundraising campaign under Henry Drucker, who raised the enormous sum of £341m - despite strong student and academic protests at the time.
This time there are unlikely to be protests, but are British alumni getting the American giving habit or are they just irritated by those phone calls and brochures asking for support?
