New Hall, Cambridge, is to rename itself after an entrepreneurial couple who on Tuesday gave the college £30m, in a sign of Oxbridge’s increasing ability to attract the big money that will help it remain among the world’s top universities.

The news of the donation came on the same day that Oxford’s Christ Church college announced a $50m (£25m) gift from a US-based donor. Both donations are among the biggest given by individuals to a British university. The two universities have argued that they cannot remain among the world’s top institutions without the huge sums of money that US Ivy League colleges have used to recruit top students and professors.