Pass for Oxford, pick up £13,000

OXFORD University launched a cash incentive scheme yesterday to tempt less affluent students.

An advertising blitz will highlight 'opportunity bursaries' worth up to £13,000 to cushion the effects of higher tuition fees payable from next year.

The publicity drive will promote the message 'It's not what's in your pocket, it's what's in your head that counts'.

The adverts will appear on sandwich-board bicycles, billboards and buses and in newspapers including the Daily Mail.

They were unveiled yesterday as Cambridge started a similar scheme, though students there can qualify for a maximum of £3,000 in the first year compared with Oxford's £4,000.

Both bursary schemes are aimed at helping students with their living costs when tuition fees are raised to £3,000-a-year from next autumn.

They have been launched after ministers told the universities they must do more to shed their 'Brideshead Revisited images'.

Oxford's scheme, first unveiled in December, will involve awarding the neediest students £4,000 in their first year and £3,000 in subsequent years of their degree - £10,000 for a three-year degree and £13,000 for four years.