Cairo University

The council of the university met in its historical meeting on 5/12/1908 to consider the matter of inaugurating the university, here, the President "Prince Ahmed Fouaad" decided to seek to Khedive of Egypt to offer to him the matter of inaugurating the university.

The Khedive agreed on the inauguration and accepted to attend and deliver a speech. The ceremony of the inauguration was held at headquarter of the Advisory Association of Laws, on the morning of 21/12/1908. All states men, notables and diplomatic men who donated to the university, as well as members of scientific associations at Egypt attended the ceremony.

The Financial Case of the University Project:
Donations continued to be sent to central subscription committees at Cairo, and secondary committees at regions of Egypt. Donations were not only cash money, but number of contributors donated their finest agricultural lands, such as; Hasan Zayed Bek who allocated 50 acres, two carats to the university, and 18 shares, Mustafa Kamel El-Ghamrawy Bek donated 6 acres and 6 shares, Sheikh Mohamed Abdul Hamid Habib donated 5 acres, Awad Earian El-Mahdy Bek donated 72 acres and 23 shares, and Prince Youssef Kamal allocated 125 acres, 16 carats, and 8 shares to the university.
        Financial committees also collected rentals of these lands whether from the allocators who offered renting them by the university after renting them to other people who offered rents higher than allocators, and this according to conditions included in allocations. Total renting was added to outcome of donations, forming at the end total capital of the university which reached on 30/9/1911: 860 cents and 37211 pounds which were distributed as following:
Cent    Pound
665    19825     collected from subscriptions of establishing the university
225    17002     value of allocated lands
940    382        value of gifted furniture

The financial committee determined 13845 pounds collected from cash donations until year 1909, and considered it as a fixed capital not to use except its yields. Therefore, the committee took expenses from annual subsidy endowments (amounting 5000 pounds per year), from yields of mentioned money, from proceeds of lands endowed for the university, and from fees of student registration.

Expansion in one side of the project forced the financial committee to reduce the expenses of another side, in order for revenues to be balanced with expenses. In 1910, expenses were more than 8540 pounds in the year, whereas revenues were 7202 pounds and 980 cents, which necessitated reduction of professors' incentives from 400 pounds to 300 pounds per year, and reduction of extra travel expenses of European professors from 100 pounds to 50 pounds.

By this mean, the university was enabled to increase the number of its lessons; after they were five, they became eight lessons in this year, and the number of consignment students increased from 11 students to 18 students. Prince Ahmed Fouaad exerted all his efforts to compose delegations to collect subscriptions in Cairo and other regions of Egypt, using all means to collect money. He also made tours in Europe in order to ask European governments for aids for the university project.

Despite the increase of expenditures that were necessitated by expanding the scope of education, as well as the increase of consignments of the university to Europe, the university was enabled to keep the balance between incomes and expenses through economizing expenses whenever they can, and through donations and subsidies presented to the university day after day.

The Egyptian Government decided to grant the university primary subsidies of 1000 pounds, included in the budget of year 1911. As the number of missions' students, expatriate teachers, and national teachers increased, expenses were increasing continuously. In year 1912, there wasbudget deficit as revenues reached 9588 pounds and 838 cents, whereas expenses reached 10082 and 419 cents, and the deficit reached 500 pounds by this which was covered from savings of previous years.