Believe it or not – outside of the United States, there are several universities that rival the prestige and quality of the Ivy League.

While that notion may sound wholly unbelievable to a xenophobic Ivy Leaguer, it’s completely true. Oxford and Cambridge, for example, are two that have been around for centuries and are recognized as the crème de la crème amongst institutions of higher learning.

Still, despite being a comparative infant, the Ivy League continues to climb the academic totem pole, and now, Oxford University, the oldest university in the English-speaking world, is starting to feel the pressure from America’s top schools – particularly Harvard.

The New Zealand Herald reports:

Oxford University needs to be allowed to charge more if it wants to compete with its United States counterparts, the institution's chancellor said.

 

Chris Patten told an educator's conference that it was "intolerable" that the British government barred Oxford and other universities from charging students more than about £3000 ($7995) a year for their schooling, pointing out that top British private schools charged that amount many times over.

 

Patten asked: "Can there be a middle-class objection to higher fees? It is surely a mad world in which parents or grandparents are prepared to shell out tens of thousands of pounds to put their children through private schools to get them in to universities, and then object to them paying a tuition fee of more than £3000 when they are there."

In other words, rather than improve the quality of education, Patten wants to inflate the value of an Oxford degree by charging an exorbitant amount of money to seem more “elite” and “selective.”

This is no different than clothing brands charging hundreds of dollars for a t-shirt that cost them less than five dollars to produce, and it’s entirely the wrong way to go about it.