Friday, August 17, 2018

Stormzy Offers Scholarships For Black Students Going To Cambridge

Stormzy has today announced that he is launching The Stormzy Scholarship, which will provide financial support to four black students attending the University of Cambridge. Set up to pay for tuition fees and a maintenance grant for up to four years of an undergraduate degree, the scholarship will fund two students this year and two in 2019.

“There are so many young black kids all over the country who have the level of academic excellence to study at a university such as Cambridge - however we are still under-represented at leading universities," the rapper, who made the announcement during A-Level results day at his former school, Harris Academy in Crystal Palace, says.

"I hope this scholarship serves as a small reminder that if young black students wish to study at one of the best universities in the world, then the opportunity is yours for the taking - and if funding is one of the barriers, then we can work towards breaking that barrier down.”


Oxbridge (the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge) has recently been criticised for not admitting enough students from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. A report by the Financial Times earlier this year showed that some Cambridge colleges admitted no black British students between 2012 and 2016. The University, which enrolled 58 black undergraduate students in 2017, has committed to doing more to increase the diversity of its studentship.

Stormzy, who didn't go to university, but got six A*s, three As and three Bs at GCSE, wrote on Instagram of his new scheme, which he hopes to grow with the help of additional investors: "This is my proudest venture thus far and I look forward to seeing some young black geniuses go on to achieve at Cambridge via this scholarship".

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