(AllHipHop News) Stormzy has been credited with an increase in admissions of black students to Cambridge University.
The prestigious educational institution teamed up with Stormzy in 2018 to create a new scholarship after damning statistics revealed from 2010 to 2015, around a quarter of Cambridge University’s 31 colleges failed to admit any black British students.
The “Shut Up” rapper has now granted scholarships to four students, paying their tuition fees and living costs for two black students each year.
Cambridge has revealed that in 2019, the figures for black students were up 50 percent on the previous year, due in part to what has been dubbed the “Stormzy effect.”
Jon Beard, director of Cambridge’s admissions office told Time magazine: “It’s made a real difference to our numbers already.”
Black students made up 3.4 percent of new undergraduates being admitted to Cambridge, with 91 beginning their studies in 2019, a fifty percent increase in the 61 students admitted the previous academic year.
There are now more than 200 black students attending Cambridge as undergraduates, a record for the institution.
The news comes as Stormzy was declared a “next-generation leader” by the U.S. magazine.
In the accompanying interview, the “Vossi Bop” hitmaker explained how his own educational success attracted a lot of media attention.
“They’re always a bit shocked that there’s academic brilliance in a young black South London brother with a street background,” Stormzy said. “If you saw a group of lads outside the chicken shop on push-bikes, I’m sure a lot of them are academically brilliant. Little did you know!”
