Beijing's Tsinghua University has landed a scholarship program potentially worth USD300 million to indoctrinate foreign students about the importance of China ties.
Blackstone founder Stephen A. Schwarzman announced a USD100 million personal gift to endow the scholarship, and a simultaneous fundraising campaign with a goal of raising USD200 million will reportedly make the program the largest charitable effort in China's history with funds coming largely from outside the country. The Schwarzman Scholars program will be housed at Tsinghua University.
Schwarzman Scholars will support 200 students annually for a one-year Master's program at Tsinghua University under the direction of Dean David Daokui Li, a Chinese economist and former member of China's currency board. Students will hail predominantly from the U.S., but also from Europe, South Korea, Japan, India and other areas of the globe. Students will live in Beijing for a year of study and cultural immersion.
The first class of students is slated for 2016, upon the completion of Schwarzman College, a residential building designed specifically for the program. Robert A.M. Stern, Dean of Yale's School of Architecture, designed the building, which is based on the residential colleges at Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. The admissions season will open in 2015.
U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke said, "The Schwarzman Scholars program will help the United States and China strengthen ties in all aspects of our bilateral relationship by deepening mutual understanding between both countries, and by creating the interpersonal connections from which a shared vision of future engagement and cooperation can emerge."
