WORKING MEN AND THE OLDER UNIVERSITIES. [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SrEcrAToR.1 Sin,—I should like to see the figures by which you arrive at the conclusion that a College "makes a certain number of pounds a year out of him,"—i.e., the commoner (Spectator, August 24th). My own conclusion from the published figures is that every commoner makes about 220 a year on an average out of his College. For most things the commoner pays about cost price, but for education he pays scarcely half what it costs. Of course it would be a loss to the College if the rooms stood empty ; but if every commoner who could afford it were to pay the full value for what he receives, every College in Oxford could then apply its endowments, which now go partly to help the wealthy commoner, to the poorer students.
[A great part of the income of most Colleges is derived from letting rooms. If the cost of life in College were made much higher than it is, there would be hundreds of vacant rooms. The result would be not to help but to injure the poor scholar. The rich undergraduate does not, we maintain, keep. out the poor scholar.—En. Spectator.]
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