Instead of using fancy brochures and an elitist image to attract students, Cambridge University is pitching the campus to Britain's top three soap operas as its latest marketing campaign.
Cambridge's spokesman said:
We're very keen to attract the brightest and best students regardless of their background. One of the better ways of communicating directly with potential students is to talk to them through the soaps and other programs they watch.
The British government, which funds both Cambridge and Oxford, has set a goal that half of all Britain's young people will attend college by 2010. With that mission, even the elite schools are targeting students from disadvantaged families. Officials hope that when the hard-trodden characters from EastEnders or Coronation Street enroll at Cambridge, all viewers will begin to picture themselves there, too. American schools adopt less salacious measures to attract a diverse student body — families making under $60,000 a year receive free tuition at Harvard. Do you think universities can have a diverse set of students, while keeping an elitist image?
Marks and Spencer
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Rebecca Taylor
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1I was reading this thinking, "Wow, are they having that much trouble getting kids to attend their college? Maybe they consider lowering their admission fees, and tuition."
2Yep, UD. I was thinking the same thing.
3After the success of "Oxford Blues" starring Rob Lowe, and what it did for that university, I'm just surprised Cambridge is so late in coming up with this.
4Why didn't the italic stop work? I hate coding.
5Harvard's still considered elite after educating the likes of Obama, so Cambridge should be able to survive an EastEnder or two.
6
7you know, i think that it's an interesting idea. in a lot of the US soaps - they talk about the younger characters going to local colleges (cause god forbid the show isn't in their little town) and i think that if the UK is able to promote college at a real location that people would want to go to - then that makes the most sense to me.
8Oh my god, I went here for my Masters and I find this really interesting.
9The tuition fees and admission are not much at all compared to American universities. The issue is that lower-income students, just like here, generally don't receive the education that would allow them to get the marks to get into Oxbridge. There's still an old-money system at work in UK education. Yes, it's also a class issue, in that lower-income students might consider Oxbridge alienating or uncool or full of toffs, so in that sense (assuming the problems of expense and fair preparation are being worked on) this actually is an interesting tack.
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