From the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, U.S. private-equity tycoon Stephen Schwarzman announced Sunday he was creating a $300 million China-based graduate scholarship he hopes will rival the Rhodes.
Schwarzman is donating $100 million out of pocket and has already raised another $100 million from donors. He expects to secure the final portion of the endowment by the year’s end. Schwarzman, the chairman of the New York-based financial-services firm Blackstone Group, is worth $6.5 billion, Forbes reported last month.
The Schwarzman Scholars program will pay for 200 students a year to complete a one-year master’s program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Tsinghua, one of China’s top schools, has produced both famous technocrats and famous poets — though its most prominent alumnus, Chinese president Xi Jinping, is more the former than the latter. Schwarzman said 45 percent of the students would come from the U.S., 20 percent from China and the rest from other parts of the world. The program begins in 2016.
The scholarship’s creation shows the positive role higher education can play in easing tensions and forging connections on the international stage. Jinping and President Barack Obama sent congratulatory letters to be read aloud at Schwarzman’s announcement ceremony, and the program’s advisory board includes political luminaries such as Condoleezza Rice, Henry Kissinger, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and former British prime minister Tony Blair. Fitting for a program that promises to bridge international differences, its very creation was the result of global collaboration.
Schwarzman’s endowment is more than an enormous philanthropic gift to China. The program is also poised to be of great practical use. Higher-education initiatives that bring together thinkers and leaders from different countries enact statesmanship through learning by giving top students the opportunity to forge an international network. The scholarship makes clear that residential higher education still has a significant part to play in how powerful countries express mutual support.
Schwarzman’s program seems bent on producing future world leaders in politics and commerce. Students will be able to choose from a limited range of master’s degrees, nearly all of which are oriented toward cultivating juggernauts — public policy, international relations, business, economics and engineering. Though Schwarzman says he was inspired by the Rhodes scholarship program at Oxford, the Schwarzman scholarship lacks the Rhodes’ intellectual flexibility: the program’s founders seem more interested in creating statesmen than scholars, which may limit the level of prestige the program attains and narrow its applicant pool. But students lucky enough to nab a scholarship will still enjoy a superior academic experience, including an immersion into Chinese culture and instruction in Mandarin.
The Schwarzman scholarship affirms the constructive role universities can play in diplomatic efforts. It also points to China’s status as a burgeoning academic center. Future students eager to win postgraduate fellowships might do well to look east. Though the Schwarzman may not gain the preeminence the Rhodes enjoys, Tsinghua’s imperial gardens present a compelling alternative to Oxford’s ancient corridors. The scholarship program marks an exciting addition to the world’s higher-education topography.
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