Any FLVS Students available?

Should the resources of each Oxbridge college be freely available to use for all students of the respective university?

• The students are all members of the same university, why do colleges make their dinning halls, libraries, and so on only really accessible to college members? From a US perspective, most universities here allow current students to  freely use any dinning hall or library on campus. I know that it is technically possible to do so at Oxford or Cambridge, but requires a significant amount of planning (special exchange dinners or permission to look at materials at another library). Would enabling the entirety of Oxford's and Cambridge's resources to be at the fingertips of the respective students improve the experience and perhaps academic environment?

• Answer:

  No, they should not. Let me try to explain: Students in Oxbridge are members of the University and members of a specific college. The latter play a much stronger role than at US universities. The central administration of the university is essentially just the governing body of a federation of independent colleges. Pooling some of the resources for say teaching and library access is very sensible and widely practiced. For some aspects of the undergraduate academic and for almost all aspects of the graduate academic experience the specific college one is is does not matter much. Beyond that colleges like to maintain a distinct culture and experience - be it in teaching style, subject focus, background of students, sports, cultural activities, or college traditions. In my view, the differences between colleges add greatly to the experience at Oxbridge and make it much more diverse and enjoyable. Colleges having the ability to build up and make available their resources such as dining halls, common rooms, libraries, and sport facilities primarily for their own students allows them to build much tighter and more distinct communities.