Doxbridge is a portmanteau of Durham, Oxford, and Cambridge, referring to the universities of those names.[1] It is an expansion of the more popular portmanteau Oxbridge, referring to Oxford and Cambridge universities and similar to the portmanteau Loxbridge, referring to London, Oxford and Cambridge.[2]
The Doxbridge portmanteau has failed to gain widespread recognition and is usually used tongue-in-cheek.[1][3][4][5][6] Nonetheless, many of the characteristics used to identify Oxford and Cambridge as distinct from other British universities are also identifiable to varying extents in Durham,[7][8][9] and the term has been used seriously in analysis of the legal jobs market.[10]
^Hollingshead, Iain (19 February 2012). "How middle-class are you? Take this quiz". The Daily Telegraph. Which university did you go to? ... Doxbridge – well, Durham, if you must know
^"Law firms' preferred universities 2019". Chambers Student. Retrieved 28 July 2019. When we leave London, we find Oxbridge only coming in at ninth and tenth on the chart. Durham has taken a slide too. When we look at what replaces Doxbridge, we see universities in big cities with legal markets significant enough to keep graduates hanging around.