Birmingham dispatched its registrar and directors of external affairs, estates, human resources, finance, IT and student experience to meet their counterparts at the University of Chicago and Chicago-based Northwestern University.

Birmingham described the event as a ¡°transatlantic summit¡± that focused on ¡°effective higher education management¡±.

The visit was part of a broader higher education relationship forged between Birmingham and Chicago. For example, Birmingham has held a joint neuroscience symposium organised with Chicago partners and has hosted Robert Zimmer, the University of Chicago¡¯s president.

Tracey Lancaster, Birmingham¡¯s director of external affairs, said of the visit: ¡°One issue we did talk about a lot was the way in which Chicago and Northwestern manage their financial-aid packages for students.

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¡°They have highly sophisticated processes to assess the specific financial needs of students from diverse backgrounds. That is a much higher level of sophistication than we have in the UK at the moment ¨C and probably ever will.¡±

However, understanding how the Chicago system operates and its best practices would help, she added.

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Ms Lancaster said the other issues discussed included ¡°financial management, how you can develop your staff [and] various ways of enhancing the student experience¡±.

She added: ¡°The UK at the moment is particularly focused on the challenges of 2012 [when the tuition-fee cap for home undergraduates will rise to ?9,000 a year]. Many of the issues we were discussing are priorities for all three institutions.¡±

Despite the commonalities, Chicago and Northwestern, both private institutions, are far richer than Birmingham, with endowment funds worth about $6 billion (?3.7 billion) each.

That gives the US universities the security to follow a ¡°20- to 30-year plan¡±, Ms Lancaster said. Although Birmingham is in a ¡°very stable financial position¡­we haven¡¯t got that freedom a private institution in the US has to almost buy itself out of trouble¡±.

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Ms Lancaster said that Birmingham and its Chicago partners were ¡°scoping out the ways in which the relationship could work¡± and that there were ¡°lots of different ways this relationship can benefit¡± all parties.

john.morgan@tsleducation.com