Poor students to benefit from $115m donation to Oxford

A SILICON Valley venture capitalist has donated £75 million ($115 million) to Oxford University to help poor students attend the prestigious institution.

The money is a gift from Sequoia Capital president Michael Moritz and his wife, novelist Harriet Heyman.

Oxford said the donation will form part of a fund to subsidise fees and living costs for students with family incomes below $24,500.

About 100 students will recieve the award in the first year.

Welsh-born Moritz says the goal is to ensure that money is not a barrier to an Oxford education.

Moritz, who attended a state school in Cardiff before being accepted into Christ Church, Oxford to read history, said he was motivated from his father's escape from Nazism as a teenager and how he had attended Oxford on a scholarship.

The number of students applying to British universities has fallen since the government tripled university fees to $13,500 starting this autumn. Students on the scholarship will pay just $5,300.

Moritz made his fortune after investing in numerous internet success stories, such as Google, PayPal and YouTube.