Starting with two students this year, the 25-year-old rapper will fund their tuition fees as well as a maintenance grant for up to four years of an undergraduate course.
Heading to his old school in south London on A-Level results day, he explained that the Stormzy Scholarship will allow 2 students to apply. Fully self-funded by the musician, the bursary aims to improve diversity at the university, which has an unfortunately unrepresentative campus: in fact, only 40 black students out of 2210 places went to Cambridge last year, and only 35 to Oxford.
Stormzy explained “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. We, as a minority, have so many examples of black students who have excelled at every level of education throughout the years. 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”
The HUNGER #12 cover star told BBC Breakfast that “if you’re academically brilliant don’t think because you come from a certain community that studying at one of the highest education institutions in the world isn’t possible.” Describing the positivity he experienced at his school, Stormzy explained that not all black students are as encouraged to reach academic heights as he was: “When students are young, academically brilliant and getting great grades, they should know that’s an option.”
Applicants for this year’s Stormzy Scholarship must be of black ethnicity and already have an offer to study at Cambridge starting this October. The application deadline is 30th August 2018, for more information and to apply, click here.
