Both Trinity and Sidney Sussex awarded one of their students a travel grant worth over £5,000, Varsity can reveal.

In the 2023-24 academic year, the largest individual travel grant Trinity College awarded was worth £5,160. During the same year, Sidney Sussex College awarded an individual grant worth £5,250.

These findings come after an investigation by Varsity into grants awarded by colleges to support student travel. Students at Cambridge, both undergraduates and postgraduates, can apply for these grants for various academic and non-academic purposes, including for research, conferences and recreation. However, there are wide disparities between the amount each college spends on travel grants.

A summary of the findings for the 2023-24 academic year can be viewed below. The figures in brackets on the left axis indicate the number of students at each college who received one or more travel grants. The total sums of Hughes Hall, Newnham and Wolfson Colleges are incomplete or provisional, since in these cases not all applications have been considered or grants claimed. They have therefore been marked with an asterisk.

Five Colleges – King’s, Newnham, Peterhouse, Queens’ and Trinity – spent over £100,000 on travel grants during the last academic year. Trinity, the highest spending college, forked out £188,009.67.

In the 2023-24 academic year, 11 colleges awarded individual grants over £2,000. Trinity and Sidney Sussex College both awarded an individual grant over £5,000.

By contrast, two colleges – Hughes Hall and St Catharine’s – spent under £25,000 on individually named travel awards last academic year.

In the last two academic years, Murray Edwards and Fitzwilliam Colleges awarded travel grants to every student who applied for one. Meanwhile, every student at Clare College can claim up to £300 over the course of their degree for summer travel. A student at Clare, who received funds to visit Florence for a language course last year, considered the college to be “pretty generous”, adding that they were “really pleased with the funding and felt that my College was very supportive and happy to help”.

Calculating the average amount that students from each college receive in travel grants is a difficult task. The grants each College awards can vary substantially in value, and a few unusually high awards can skew the average above the value of a typical grant. In addition, students can receive more than one grant each year.

The disparities in spend between colleges can be explained in part because colleges with more students often receive more applications for travel grants, and award more grants as a result.

However, this explanation does not always apply. In the 2023-24 academic year, Peterhouse (one of the smallest Colleges by student population, and wealthiest by assets per student) distributed £107,629.59 in travel grants between 194 students. In the same year, Lucy Cavendish College distributed £46,244 between 258 students.

Some students Varsity spoke to believed the amount each College spends on travel grants could be explained by other factors. EH, a student at Christ’s who received £100 to support a trip to Paris (which was less than they applied for), argued that “the College’s ability to give grants is partly influenced by its financial position…many of the grants at Christ’s are funded by donations from alumni for the intended purpose of travel”.

Travel grants can also have unusual criteria for students to be applicable for funding. St John’s maintains its C. W. Brasher Fund, Roger Chisholm Fund, and Ulysses Travel Fund to enable students to travel, respectively, to “a wilder part of the world”, “wild places”, and “more remote parts of the world”. Trinity holds the Field Fund, grants from which are awarded with a preference to students who are direct descendants of a specific college alumnus’ relative.

When asked about the amount King’s College spent on travel grants, a spokesperson for the college replied: “Student travel grants at King’s are funded entirely through a philanthropic donation made exclusively for the purpose of supporting student travel. It covers all forms of travel for our undergraduate and graduate students, including promoting green forms of travel and always paying carbon offsets.”

The spokesperson continued: “The amount includes support for undergraduate student travel while undertaking a year abroad, and for graduate students who may have been studying abroad, conducting fieldwork, or attending conferences. The fund also supported a pilot internship for six students at a major international policy conference in the USA.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Murray Edwards College said: “College travel awards make a positive contribution to student life across the University. At Murray Edwards, we are pleased to be able to support so many members of our student community in funding travel for research and personal development. Students tell us how important these grants are in enabling them to undertake trips, research and internships that would otherwise be out of reach financially.”

A spokesperson for Trinity College also said: “Trinity College continues to do everything it can to support its members, and students and researchers across the University of Cambridge and its Colleges. In 2023-2024, Trinity spent more than £10 million in support of the Collegiate University, particularly through research and studentships, and via contributions to other Colleges.”

A full list of figures were not obtained for Clare, Corpus Christi, Darwin, Downing, Emmanuel, Girton and Robinson Colleges.

Colleges can occasionally redirect applications for other types of grant, such as hardship funds, to travel grants. These redirected grants have also been included.

All relevant colleges have been contacted for comment.