Coming Soon: A Chinese Version Of The Rhodes Scholarship
What’s the Latest Development?
On Sunday, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen A. Schwartzman announced the creation of a $300 million scholarship program that over the next 50 years will send 10,000 students to China’s Tsinghua University for one all-expenses-paid year of graduate study. Beginning in June of 2016, 200 students — 45 percent of whom will come from the US — will participate in a summer-long cultural and language immersion program, and then attend courses leading to a master’s degree in one of several business-critical disciplines, including economics and international relations.
What’s the Big Idea?
Funded by Schwartzman himself along with big-name corporate donors, such as Boeing and BP, the scholarship represents yet another shift in world influence from West to East. For his part, Schwartzman says he wants to promote understanding between China and the rest of the world and to create future leaders who can “impact their countries’ and China’s destinies.” Another motive is much more personal: He was turned down for a Rhodes Scholarship in 1969. That program, which has been bringing students to Oxford University since 1902, has an endowment that’s currently worth about $203 million.
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