LONDON >> A group of prominent British professors is starting a private university in London with the goal of providing an education to rival the country’s elite institutions in Oxford and Cambridge.

The New College of the Humanities will be led by AC Grayling, a renowned philosophy professor, and the faculty will include Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and successful author, and economics professor and writer Niall Ferguson.

Grayling said Saturday that the college will offer degrees in literature, history, economics, law and other disciplines, in conjunction with the University of London.

Tuition fees will be set at 18,000 pounds ($29,500) per year, double the maximum allowed under a government cap that applies to public universities