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16th Aug 2018

Stormzy launches Cambridge scholarship for black students

Kyle Picknell

Stormzy. Good bloke. All round top man

Everyone’s favourite hot chocolate and panini enthusiast Stormzy has announced a new scholarship fund.

What’s it called? The Stormzy Scholarship. Is he gassed? Of course he is. Why? Because he’s never ran his own scholarship to help young black students access the very best higher of higher education regardless of their family income before. Duh.

The Ivor Novello award-winning artist will be paying the full fees to the prestigious university for two students this year, and a further two in 2019.

The university has rightly been criticised in the past for not admitting enough pupils of a black, Asian or ethnic minority background and the Financial Times even found that some of Cambridge’s colleges didn’t take in any black students during a period between 2012 to 2016.

The man himself said of the scholarship: “It’s so important for black students, especially, to be aware that it can 100% be an option to attend a university of this calibre.

“If you’re academically brilliant don’t think because you come from a certain community that studying at one of the highest education institutions in the world isn’t possible.

“We’re a minority, the playing ground isn’t level for us and it’s vital that all potential students are given the same opportunity.”

It’s not Stormzy’s first commitment to helping students access the very best higher education either, after the rapper donated £9,000 to Oxford student Fiona Asiedu’s crowdfunding campaign so that she could study a masters degree at Harvard.

https://twitter.com/FionaJ_A/status/864080204054003713

To be eligible for the Stormzy Scholarship, applicants must be of black ethnicity and have an offer to study at the University of Cambridge. This year’s application deadline is August 30.

For next year students need to apply through UCAS by 15 October.