The net assets of the University of Cambridge as of July 2025 is approximately £8.3 billion. Admittedly, the particular net worth of each college varies significantly, with Trinity’s approximate £2.4 billion endowment putting the mere tens of millions of other colleges to shame. But a clear point nonetheless remains – that this University is not exactly one lacking in monetary value.

Within this deluge of wealth, unsurprisingly, is King’s College – one of the central and most well-known Cambridge colleges. What is equally unsurprising to me is that despite a net worth in the millions, the College appears to still feel the need to make its celebrated ‘affair’ workers pay to attend the second half of the ball after working the first half, a development they did not bother to tell the students about until after they had already applied to work there.

“It’s as if you should feel honoured to even have the chance to be exploited by them”

Now, student workers are notoriously treated terribly. Businesses take one look at them, see young adults in desperate need of money, and immediately start offering their most gruelling jobs at minimum wage. In this case, it is not that student workers are continuing their trend of receiving unfair treatment in itself; what irritates me the most is that it is being done by a college, an educational institution – not to mention a rich one – that should be founded on the idea of helping students rather than viewing them as a medium to get more cash. Colleges such as King’s should be a college first and business second, an order that is becoming curiously reversed.

It implies a commercialised perspective of colleges towards those it teaches. In this world of economised education, the College becomes entrepreneur, the fellow shareholder, and the student employee. Aside from the irony of the fact that it is the students themselves that are paying to be here, I do not believe that this kind of mentality is one that should be held by a system that was born out of a love of discovery, learning and teaching.

“You should not only accept the poor treatment, but you should also feel grateful for it”

There is, I think, even more to this than simply colleges being unwilling to sacrifice some money to give their workers a fair reward. There is a mindset that is clear throughout Cambridge, one that is not entirely unfounded but seems to be so ingrained into the University it cannot be separated. It is a mindset centred on superiority and elitism. Everyone here has a little of it – that prideful feeling emerges when you walk into a college surrounded by tourists or compare the lifestyles of students at other universities to your own formal and gown filled one.

There is nothing particularly wrong with this feeling in small amounts. But it is when the old Cambridge colleges like King’s become absorbed in this historical mindset, causing it to affect the way they see and treat their students, that it becomes a problem. ‘You should be proud of yourself for making it here’ becomes ‘it doesn’t matter how we treat you; you should feel honoured to even have the chance to be here.’ Cambridge colleges differ from many other businesses in that it is not just that they may exploit you – it is that you should feel honoured to even have the chance to be exploited by them. It is vicious in that you should not only accept the treatment, but you should also feel grateful for it. This indicates not only an appalling attitude towards those that colleges should be teaching and guiding, but also the kind of arrogant, pretentious mentality that Cambridge claims to have progressed from.

“A university should treat its students as deserving of respect, as well as facilitate their growth”

Cambridge embodies tradition and academic excellence, qualities that contribute to both its charm and its egotistic attitude. It makes it easy for the University to keep its self-righteous point of view regarding its students, viewing them as tools to maintain their excellence. When hiring students to work at their events, in their bars, and in their libraries, colleges should recognise students as valuable members of the workforce and treat them as such, rather than just seeing them as a method to maintain their reputation and economy.

There is, of course, always the chance that I’m reading too much into this, and the sorry situation that King’s has offered the workers at its ‘affair ’ has nothing to do with ingrained elitism, and everything to do with King’s jumping on the business bandwagon of being as tight with money as is physically possible. If so, it still says a lot of not particularly complimentary things about King’s, both in general and as a system of education.

Nevertheless, there is something to say about the mentality with which the student workers in this city are viewed. A university should treat its students as deserving of respect, as well as facilitate their growth; and it makes me wonder if somewhere, on their path of wealth and educational glory, the University of Cambridge has forgotten that.