Winston Churchill Top-Up Bursary Fund

Churchill has one of the highest proportions of undergraduate entrants from the state sector amongst Oxbridge Colleges and has historically excelled in student bursary provision, thanks to the generosity of its supporters.

• 104 undergraduate students currently receive a means-tested Cambridge Bursary.
• 68% of these students qualify for the maximum £3,500 per year as their annual family income is below £25,000.
• The College also awards these students a Winston Churchill Top-Up Bursary of £1,000-£2,000 because they are in the greatest financial need.
• Double the number of Home undergraduate students qualified for a Winston Churchill Top-Up Bursary  in 2022 compared with 2021 (from 15 to 29 students).
• The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust no longer funds this scheme so the College is reliant on philanthropic support from alumni and friends to ensure that this vital additional support can continue.

Churchill is proud of its tradition of having an unusually high number of undergraduates from very financially disadvantaged backgrounds. The top-up bursaries provide relief from the pressure of immediately having to find work in the holidays. In short, the additional sum takes considerable pressure off these students and gives them choices, academic and otherwise, such as unpaid summer internships.

Contrary to other institutions, students from this group excel at Churchill — a College that has been placed 4th/29 across the last decade in the Tompkins Table — bucking the national trend for students from disadvantaged groups to achieve lower results at university than equally qualified students from more advantaged backgrounds.

We attribute our success to the very close individual support we offer to students and to the additional financial support they are receiving.