When I applied to Cambridge, I didn’t really understand the college system. I had been told on an open day that colleges were akin to Hogwarts houses, and that my university experience would be more or less the same regardless of which one I applied to. As I navigated my first year at Lucy Cav, I quickly realised that this was not the case; it baffled me that my college could be in so much debt to another – John’s – when they were part of the same university.

“The more I learnt about international relations, the more uncanny the similarities between sovereign states and colleges with few limits on their behaviour became”

At the same time, like most first year HSPS-ers, I was taking POL2, an introductory international relations (IR) paper. Central to the study of IR is the concept of international anarchy: the idea that there is no world government. Individual states are sovereign actors, meaning that only they are in charge of what goes on within their borders. Though there are bodies like the UN that are involved in global governance, state adherence to their regulations is largely self-motivated. The more I learnt about international relations, the more uncanny the similarities between sovereign states and colleges with few limits on their behaviour became.

Though we talk about the “University”, Cambridge’s colleges are generally autonomous actors. Just like states in charge of their own economies, citizenship, and political systems, each college is free to manage its own endowment, admissions policies, and leadership. Like states in a globalised world, colleges are also, in some instances, interdependent. It might be dramatic to compare my trek from Lucy Cav to Pembroke for a supervision to flows of migration between states, but it is fair to say that colleges often rely on each other to function.

This is especially true of Cambridge’s poorer colleges. This year, I have no supervisions at my own college, something that would be much rarer at a more well-endowed college. Trinity is one of our largest benefactors, and last year I lived in accommodation that displayed a “St John’s College only” sign. Lucy Cav could do comparatively little to resist John’s decision to knock down three historic houses used by the college for over two decades and replace them with Johns accommodation. Though colleges, like states, possess autonomy, they are also constrained by allegiances (and indebtedness) to wealthier actors.

“Like states in a globalised world, colleges are also, in some instances, interdependent”

The college system brings with it a specific set of challenges, as does its international counterpart. Because of this, it is often difficult to get states to cooperate with one another, and when they do, it is even harder to ensure that they enforce their pledges. The Paris Agreement, for instance, was ratified by all but three states, but few have actually achieved their goals. This has unfortunate parallels with the University’s climate pledges; it aims to reach “absolute Net Zero” by 2048, but this only applies to the Universities “operational estate”, not the individual colleges. Just a glance at the Climate League of Oxford and Cambridge (CLOC) reveals just how wide the intercollegiate disparities are when it comes to climate action: Jesus has pledged to reach net zero by 2030, whilst several other colleges have no publicly available target. 

It is not just states that are engaged in climate action, however. Increasingly, international relations has broadened its field of study to focus on non-state actors like non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and theorised how they engage in global governance. A crucial part of their role is the provision of information, both through research and raising public awareness of issues. They also put pressure on governments to change their policies, which often involves collaborating with national campaigns. This is a role that is played by student societies at Cambridge. For instance, if it were not for pressure from Trinity’s Student Union, it would not be public knowledge that the college had not divested from Israeli arms. Many students express frustrations with the lack of sustainability-related modules within their courses, so the Cambridge Climate Society’s Education Campaign works with departments to change this.

Examples aside, I am not just trying to conveniently use my degree reading for something other than my essays. Cambridge recently ranked 110th out of 149 universities in a climate league table compiled by People and Planet. This should come as no surprise; my own engagement with student changemaking through the Climate Society has been at times frustrating, precisely because of how opaque and impenetrable the University’s governance system is. The college system is in many ways a fun quirk of the Oxbridge system, but understanding its systemic challenges is one step towards overcoming them.

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