Professor Dame Mary Beard will help fund two Classics students from under-represented backgrounds to study at Cambridge in a bid to encourage more diversity across the subject. The £80,000 “retirement present” from the Cambridge historian will pay the £10,000-a-year living costs of two undergraduates from minority ethnic groups and low-income homes for the full duration of their degrees. Dame Mary, who will retire at the end of 2022 after almost 40 years teaching at Cambridge, said the gift is “payback” for everything Classics has given her. It comes as elite universities are under increased pressure to ensure talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds are admitted to degree courses.