Nor does Oxford any more; any such arrangement would be howled down nowadays. It would be disgraceful.
> They get one of 30 representatives on the Board of Alders
Kay, so I don't know what the Board of Alders is. I suppose it's like the city council? 728 sounds like a really small ward, if Aldermen are like Councillors.
Students in the UK get to say where they live (in digs, with their parents) for the purposes of voting. I think that's OK, as long as they don't vote in both places (I think this is most uncommon, but I assume it happens). [Edit to add] Quite a lot of students that come to Oxford end up settling here, at least for a while. I don't see why they shouldn't get to vote here.
The problem, as I see it, is that Oxford and the colleges are just so RICH. Saint John's College alone is said to own half the land between Oxford and London. It's very difficult for a resident population of 140,000 to resist the will of an institution with massively more wealth and more income than the residents (and which also happens to own the entire city centre).
What I mean is that you don't have to get representatives elected; it's enough that you are standing on the sidelines, with suitcases full of potential tax revenue. You can get your way just by people knowing you are fabulously rich.