Doing a Grayling: your step-by-step guide to setting up a new college

 Professor AC Grayling, who plans to set up an independent university college. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi for the Guardian

Last week, AC Grayling and other distinguished academics announced that they were setting up an independent university college, the New College of the Humanities. It's just possible others could be interested in doing the same. Here is a 10-point guide for those who think this is finally the answer to making the kind of money that their peers in the City have earned for decades – or a bit of extra cash for a loft conversion.

Your institution will need a strong USP. Nobody is going to pay that little bit – or preferably a lot – extra for just another college providing private tuition to pass external degrees accredited by another university. Attend lots of dinner parties with other intellectuals, people in the media and the very rich from both sides of the Atlantic. Make sure as many of your fellow guests as possible are from a golden age when you had to pass Latin O-level to get into Oxbridge, which, naturally, most of them should have attended, unless they are the ones backing your initiative. In that case, it's OK if they just wish they had gone to Oxbridge. Discuss how the priceless benefits of a UK higher education are potentially being lost for your children's/grandchildren's generation. This has the added benefit of being an excuse to boast about going to Oxbridge. Bemoan how intellectually moribund and cash-obsessed the current government is – in fact all politicians are. Swap stories about the ridiculous sums that wealthy Americans are prepared to pay for university and how the UK is heading the same way. Speculate on who in the UK is set to make a lot of money out of all this …

Your subject, of course, then anything else that regularly comes up in conversation. Young people don't seem to be able to think properly these days and their morals are all over the place, so a bit of logic and ethics wouldn't go amiss. Employers seem to think that learning time-management and teamwork are as important as an in-depth knowledge of Wittgenstein, so you'd better offer these too.

Don't bother with science. It involves lots of expensive equipment and your professors would have to spend time with students in the lab rather than just pop in for the odd lecture. It also has much less publicity power – few people in the media studied it and even fewer can envisage their dyscalculic kids in a lab coat. Also, Brian Cox is likely to be too busy. Science literacy is a good compromise and might help students understand In Our Time.

Have a think about who you bumped into at last year's Hay festival and/or flick through the Radio Times to identify the world's most distinguished academics. Promise them generous rewards in return for a few lectures. Persuade a handful of former colleagues that this is a new and exciting venture that will pay handsomely and could present opportunities for them to appear on TV.

Either Oxford or Cambridge would be good, but they might involve a long-ish taxi ride after a transatlantic flight. A London location would mean your professorati could still be easily available for book launches and Television Centre. The capital will also seem cool and edgy to students. Why not choose Bloomsbury, which carries just the right connotations of intellectuals, artists, philosophers and nicely patterned wallpaper?

Think of the sum most UK universities are about to start charging, and double it.

Emphasise employment and internship opportunities, but also hint that it is OK to just travel and hang out for a while before starting a career. Let students know that while you want them to have three As at A-level, this is a very general guide and they will be assessed as individuals. As long as they meet the minimum requirements for your linked university's external degree programme – two A-level passes – this will be fine.

Stress that most students will have to have three As at A-level. Keep mentioning Oxbridge, one-to-one tutorials, the very distinguished professors that they will have seen on the telly and your extensive contacts with lucrative employers.

Don't worry if lots of other colleges are doing the same thing. Just say the word "new" a lot. Maybe even use it in the title. You may recall the Labour party once did this very successfully. Go on about how ground-breaking your initiative is. But not too much. Remember to hark back to a time when higher education was just better, which meant that society in general was better, too.

Keep mentioning Oxbridge. Try to launch your venture on a quiet Sunday – the end of a half-term week would be perfect. Have your hair trimmed in preparation for possible TV appearances.

Make sure that at least some poor, but worthy, students can attend by charging the others so much that there will easily be some money left over for scholarships and bursaries. Comfort yourself with the fact that some students could actually be better off studying with you than elsewhere, thanks to shockingly high tuition fees caused by successive governments selling out on higher education. Ignore snide articles in newspapers like the Guardian, and start planning that loft conversion.