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Scholarships and financial support
There are many opportunities for students at Oxford to receive financial help during their studies. The Oxford Opportunity Bursaries, introduced in 2006, are university-wide means-based bursaries available to any British undergraduate. With a total possible grant of £10,235 over a 3-year degree, it is the most generous bursary scheme offered by any British university. In addition, individual colleges also offer bursaries and funds to help their students. For graduate study, there are many scholarships attached to the university, available to students from all sorts of backgrounds, from Rhodes Scholarships to the relatively new Weidenfeld Scholarships. Oxford also offers the Clarendon Scholarship which is open to graduate applicants of all nationalities. The Clarendon Scholarship is principally funded by Oxford University Press in association with colleges and other partnership awards. In 2016, Oxford University announced that it is to run its first free online economics course as part of a “massive open online course" (Mooc) scheme, in partnership with a US online university network. The course available is called ‘From Poverty to Prosperity: Understanding Economic Development’.

Students successful in early examinations are rewarded by their colleges with scholarships and exhibitions, normally the result of a long-standing endowment, although since the introduction of tuition fees the amounts of money available are purely nominal. Scholars, and exhibitioners in some colleges, are entitled to wear a more voluminous undergraduate gown; "commoners" (originally those who had to pay for their "commons", or food and lodging) are restricted to a short, sleeveless garment. The term "scholar" in relation to Oxford therefore had a specific meaning as well as the more general meaning of someone of outstanding academic ability. In previous times, there were "noblemen commoners" and "gentlemen commoners", but these ranks were abolished in the 19th century. "Closed" scholarships, available only to candidates who fitted specific conditions such as coming from specific schools, now exist only in name.

High Speed 2 (HS2) is a planned high-speed railway in the United Kingdom linking London, Birmingham, the East Midlands, Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester. It would be the second high-speed rail line in Britain, after High Speed 1 (HS1) which connects London to the Channel Tunnel. The line is to be built in a "Y" configuration, with London on the bottom of the "Y", Birmingham at the centre, Leeds at the top right and Manchester at the top left. Work on the first phase is scheduled to begin in 2017, reaching Birmingham by 2026, Crewe on the left leg of the "Y" by 2027, and fully completed by 2033.

Carlisle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Preston and York will be linked to the network by HS2 trains running over existing slower tracks or edge-of-town HS2 stations. The HS2 project is being developed by High Speed Two (HS2) Ltd, a company limited by guarantee established by the UK government and has a projected cost of £56 billion. Peak hour capacity leaving Euston will more than triple once HS2 is running, increasing from 11,300 to 34,900.

The project is to be built in two phases. Phase 1 is from London to the West Midlands and phase 2 from the West Midlands to Leeds and Manchester. Phase 2 is split into two sub-phases. Phase 2a is from the West Midlands to Crewe. Phase 2b will extend the project from Crewe to Manchester, and the West Midlands to Leeds. The government’s decision will go through the parliamentary process for approval. Although Parliament has approved the first two phases of construction, precise details of the plan and route have not been formalised, and are still open to negotiation and change. For example, the spur to Heathrow airport was dropped from phases one and two in 2015, as was the HS1 to HS2 link, while the Crewe Hub has been added to the scheme.


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