Oxbridge students work harder, are more satisfied and get better value for money than other students but have less creative and original teaching, according to a new report on the student experience at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

The study, How Different is Oxbridge?, published by the Higher Education Policy Institute claims to show how the student experience differs from the experience at other Russell Group universities and all UK universities.

Nick Hillman, co-author of the report and director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), said: “Oxford and Cambridge perform almost unbelievably well. Oxbridge students work harder, are more satisfied with their lives and are more likely to say they are getting good value for money than other students. 

“Our results confirm the two universities provide a world-beating student experience alongside their world-beating research.”

Key findings include that 59% of Oxbridge undergraduates are ‘very satisfied’ with their course compared with 31% of students at other Russell Group institutions; 77% of Oxbridge students but only 46% of other Russell Group students perceive their course to provide either ‘good’ or ‘very good’ value for money; and Oxbridge students work 43 hours per week during term-time on average, 12 hours more than other Russell Group students or all students.

The survey suggests Oxbridge students by several indicators have a higher quality experience than peers at other Russell Group institutions:

• 96% of Oxbridge students but only 36% of other Russell Group students have at least one hour per week in classes with 0 to 5 other students;
   
• 59% of students at other Russell Group institutions have at least one class per week with more than 100 other students, compared to 42% at Oxbridge and overall;
   
• 82% of Oxbridge students but only 13% of other Russell Group students receive feedback within one week.

But on one aspect the Oxbridge experience falls short: 52% of all UK students say their teachers use original or creative teaching methods ‘a lot’ or ‘quite a bit’, more than at Oxbridge (41%) or other Russell Group institutions (45%).

Charlotte Freitag, co-author of the report and a postgraduate student at the University of Oxford, said she was surprised that Oxbridge students are happier and more satisfied with their lives than other Russell Group university students while working 12 hours more per week. “They tend to work a full 40-hour week during term-time, unlike students studying elsewhere in the UK.”

Also, she had not expected them to perceive their teaching to be less original than that of students elsewhere. 

But she also noted that in one key area, class sizes of more than 100 students, Russell Group universities – the country’s top research universities – were the exception. “Such large classes are less common at Oxbridge and universities overall than at Russell Group universities,” she said.

Hillman said there are good reasons for the positive view of Oxford and Cambridge, since they both have a high level of resources, unrivalled facilities, well-prepared students, close-knit collegiate environments and diverse and experienced staff from all over the world.

However, he warned against assuming that other countries could extrapolate lessons for their higher education systems.

“It is crucial that policy-makers remember the degree to which Oxbridge is exceptional rather than typical. Anyone who assumes the same policy interventions will work across the board is likely to be disappointed,” he said.

In a foreword to the report, David Palfreyman, fellow of New College, Oxford, and a member of the board of the Office for Students, expanded on what makes Oxford and Cambridge different, citing governance still along the lines of a medieval academic guild, the survival of colleges as independent legal entities, the possession of substantial endowments fattened by alumni giving, highly ranked research output, strong commitment to the intensive teaching of undergraduates via the Oxford Tutorial or Cambridge Supervision, high entry grades, lack of socio-economic diversity among students, diseconomies of scale of the collegiate system, the cost of sustaining world-class museums, the hyper-employability of their graduates, and a production line of prime ministers and Nobel Prize winners, among other things. 

He also said he believes the findings show that the expenditure on intense and costly teaching methodology pays off in terms of student satisfaction with ‘the learning experience’ and their sense of ‘value for money’.

Factors behind strong performance

The report concludes that a number of factors are behind Oxbridge’s strong performance in the survey and these include the preparedness of Oxbridge candidates, who are “drawn from better off sections of the population in much large numbers than from [other] parts of society”.

Other factors include the collegiate environment, with potential for better student welfare, peer-to-peer support and secure and subsidised accommodation; the quality of facilities; the higher level of teaching intensity with more small classes and a strong personal tutoring system; diverse student and staff communities from around the world; and being situated in relatively prosperous and safe cities.

Several key lessons for policy-makers, the report said, was that the “level of resources matters in providing a high-quality student experience, a collegiate environment has the potential to offer extra benefits and the total workload of some students outside Oxbridge seems to remain too low”.

The report is based on data from the annual HEPI/Higher Education Academy Student Academic Experience Surveycollected between 2012 and 2017. The responses of 1,625 Oxbridge students are set against the responses of 18,354 students at other Russell Group universities and then compared to the responses of 60,221 undergraduates across all UK universities.