College pay gap for Oxford tutorial fellows drives ‘ill will’

Tutorial fellows at some of the wealthiest University of Oxford colleges are on stipends worth more than twice as much as their peers at less moneyed halls, it has been claimed.

Associate professor teaching fellows, who conduct research and teach undergraduate degree courses, are paid a central sum by the university, which is consistent across the board – but also receive additional “allowances” from their college, which were traditionally used to cover accommodation costs for those electing to live off-campus.

Historically, these allowances were relatively similar across colleges, but in the past five years more affluent institutions have upped their awards in a bid to combat competition from US universities offering more money to early career researchers.

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One fellow, who has worked with colleagues to collate details of allowances across Oxford, said the “unfair” disparities were creating a sense of “extreme ill will” among staff.

The data, seen by Times Higher Education, indicates that discrepancies between allowances offered by some colleges over the past two years have been in the region of £17,000.

Colleges offering the most generous allowances include Magdalen (£26,418), Merton (£26,000) and St John’s (£25,732), well above the stipends on offer at poorer outposts such as Worcester (£9,950), St Anne’s (£9,829) and St Hilda’s (£8,856).

“It is starting to affect morale, and there’s a growing feeling of resentment in the last year or two. People are really, really deeply unhappy with the university and colleges as a group of employers attempting to deal with the problem, because we suspect that they’re actually not really dealing with the problem, they’re just trying to kick the can down the road,” the fellow said.

While Oxford pledged earlier this year to increase the salaries of its lowest-paid staff by £1,500, the review did not directly address the issues faced by associate professor teaching fellows.

The academic who spoke to THE said fellows had attempted to raise the issue with the university “three or four times” in recent years, to no avail.

The university salary paid to tutorial fellows is on the associate professor scale, which ranges from £44,296 to £59,479.

“I personally know of a few colleagues who have left the university because of this and [taken] positions elsewhere,” they said. “We now have the situation where we have very senior eminent professors who have worked for 30 to 40 years and are being paid far less than a junior new appointee at, say, Merton or Christ Church.”

“It’s completely bonkers,” they added. “It just makes a mockery of the whole professorial merit system.”

The University of Oxford was approached for comment. 

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com