St Hilda's, the last all-female college in Oxford, voted yesterday against letting in men. The decision by Fellows of the college fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to change the status quo.

About 40 undergraduates held a protest during the vote. They cheered when the result was announced. Penny Berrill, the junior common room president, said: "I'm ecstatic. We're a women's college and we're sticking by women's education."

The call for change came as St Hilda's faces increasing financial and academic difficulties. Jessica Lennard, 20, a second-year law student who had organised a demonstration calling on the college to "go mixed", said: "We need to get rid of the stereotype that girls at St Hilda's are unattractive and stupid."

St Hilda's, founded in 1893, was one of five colleges set up at Oxford to provide education for women when other colleges accepted only men.

(Agencies)