The University of Cambridge has cut funding previously allocated for mature student outreach, as part of a broader series of spending cuts.

Cambridge has three mature colleges, Wolfson, Hughes Hall, and St Edmund’s, which are among the poorest in the University. Additionally, two colleges, Darwin and Clare Hall, only accept postgraduate students but do not have formal restrictions on age.

Together, the three mature colleges run an annual residential programme, Cambridge 21+, for prospective mature students. The programme is described by Hughes Hall as being designed for “Home fee status students,” who have not previously attended university.

Taking place online and in person over the course of several months, the programme was described by one student as being “entirely University funded,” with participants not paying any fees.

However, the University has now decided to pull the funding that makes the scheme possible.

Alongside the flagship Cambridge 21+ programme, Hughes Hall’s outreach work has recently included a residential for students from Foundation Education colleges in East Anglia.

Foundation Education colleges offer courses for students without A-levels, offering a chance to access higher education.

The programme involved taster lectures and supervisions in the humanities and social sciences.

Varsity understands that Hughes Hall does not fund its outreach efforts itself, with Trinity College supporting it with additional funding for a second programme.

One student at Hughes Hall, who receives a bursary, raised fears that the loss of funding could lead colleges to focus on recruiting international students, who pay higher fees.

“To me, by doing this, mature colleges risk focusing more on international students older than 21, which bring in more profit, rather than trying to increase the domestic pool,” the student said.

“It’s a shame because domestic mature students are often forgotten about and can experience a more challenging path to university. It really begs the question on how the university perceives mature colleges, are they run for profit or are they institutions of higher education?”

The decision to slash funding for mature student outreach follows the publication in 2024 of the University’s most recent Access and Participation Plan (APP), covering admission years 2025-2026 through to 2028-2029.

Another Hughes student emphasised the need for Cambridge to have “a community that has a wide variety of experiences and opinions”. She continued, “Sometimes these universities feel inaccessible and cutting funding that goes towards marketing especially for mature students just exacerbates the idea that it’s inaccessible.”

Unlike previous plans, the latest APP does not include students from the state-maintained sector or mature students in its list of groups at risk of reduced access to Cambridge.

The university produces an APP every five years, agreed to by the colleges, that outlines the university’s strategy for creating equality of opportunity in access to higher education.

In line with the Office for Students’ latest report on access and participation in higher education, which informs the university’s APP, state-educated students and mature students are not being treated by the university as specific groups that should be targeted in order to maintain equality of opportunity.

Following the publication of the new plan, Cambridge has seen admissions of state school students fall for two consecutive years.

In 2024, 71% of that year’s Cambridge matriculants came from state schools, and 29% from fee-paying schools. By comparison, just 7% of the broader UK population attended a fee-paying school.

That figure represented the continuation of a trend that began in 2023, when the percentage of students educated at state schools dropped for the first time in over a decade.

Classics, Music, and Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion were among the subjects that saw the highest number of privately-educated students.

The small number of offers made for undergraduate degrees by the mature colleges makes it difficult to gauge from official statistics how many of their students come from the state sector. However, many British mature students come to University through non-traditional backgrounds.

A University spokesperson told Varsity: “The University has had to cut the money given to the Mature Student Promotions budget held by the Student Recruitment and Marketing Team as part of a broader review of expenditure. The University will continue to work to support the mature Colleges with the recruitment of undergraduate and postgraduate students.”

The cuts come after Varsity revealed that an error in the way that the University calculated inflation means that institution-wide spending cuts, initially set at a flat rate of 5%, will have to be deepened in order to keep up with inflation.

Concerns have been raised by the University Board of Scrutiny that the cuts represent a “blunt instrument,” failing to account for the differing circumstances of each School or Department.

The University’s financial struggles have been compounded by turbulence in senior leadership positions, after the University cancelled the appointment of its new Chief Financial Officer earlier in November. At the time, the University explained the decision as being intended to “maintain stability and continuity” in its leadership team.