$300 Million Scholarship Program

Why is money being funneled into establishing new educational programs abroad when there are still no rules or regulations in place to protect our students?
According to a Huffington Post article, a U.S. private equity tycoon has established a $300 million endowed scholarship program rivaling the Rhodes scholarship in China for students across the world.
“Stephen A. Schwarzman, founder of the private equity firm Blackstone, said he would give $100 million as a personal gift and raise another $200 million to endow the Schwarzman Scholars program at Beijing's Tsinghua University,” the article stated. This scholarship program will be the largest philanthropic gift with foreign money in China’s history, according to the tycoon and the university. "China is no longer an elective course, it's core curriculum," Schwarzman said in Beijing.
As stated in the article, Schwarzman hopes that his partnering with the prestigious Chinese university results in training future world leaders. He said he also hopes the program plays a “positive role in relations between China and the United States.” "For future geopolitical stability and global prosperity, we need to build a culture of greater trust and understanding between China, America and the rest of the world," he said.
The program would be jointly governed by the Schwarzman Education Foundation and Tsinghua University. Donors include BP, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Boeing, GE, JPMorgan Chase, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Caterpillar, Credit Suisse and Deloitte. $100 million has already been raised in the past six months from private donors, Schwarzman said.
Beginning in 2016, 200 students each year will be able to take part in a one-year master’s program at Tsinghua in public policy, economics and business, international relations or engineering. According to Schwarzman, 45 percent of the students would come from the United States, 20 percent from China and the rest from other parts of the world.
If you believe that these programs encouraging American students to go abroad need to have rules and regulations in place to protect the involved students, please push the button “ClearCause Voices” on the right to send a message to your federal and state policy makers.