In 1944 he was one of two children from Walsden board school to be awarded a county minor scholarship to Todmorden grammar school.
And it has to be admitted that we happy few who had "passed the scholarship" enjoyed all the satisfaction that comes from supposed membership of an elite.
Mr Clegg's contention that reformed fees will boost social mobility is too technocratic for the political pass he has reached, especially since it has not been properly nailed down: the Institute for Fiscal Studies said yesterday that the national scholarship fund to help poorer applicants could perversely encourage top institutions to turn them away.
Najib has acknowledged Saiful came to see him but says it was in connection with a university scholarship.
To put that in context, it's enough to cover tuition costs at Yale for about half a semester, assuming that he doesn't get a scholarship or a big financial aid package.
Their son Faris spent his childhood holidays in the West Bank playing football with his cousins, whose extended families had been forced to disperse all round the world, and he only got in to boarding school on a scholarship.
This scholarship is both an incentive to return children to school and a practical measure, enabling families to survive without their children's wages.
Although contests to gain followers or re-tweets for a cause are common, this link between a donor, scholarship funds and social media was the first of its kind in higher education.
The claims were put in doubt by a university thinktank, which warned today that the scholarship funding pot might not be enough to pay the fees of students who would qualify.
Jenny Shaw is head of higher education engagement at the Unite Group and the manager of the Unite Foundation scholarship programme.
He took some of the courses himself and then, aged 22, went to Ruskin College, Oxford, on a union-sponsored scholarship.
