Study Abroad

The Rhodes Scholarships an international post-graduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford. It was established in 1902, making it the first large-scale programme of international scholarship. The Rhodes Scholarship was founded by English businessman and politician Cecil John Rhodes, to promote unity between English speaking nations and instill a sense of civic-minded leadership and moral fortitude in future leaders irrespective of their chosen career paths. Although initially restricted to male applicants from countries which are today within the Commonwealth, as well as Germany and the United States, today the Scholarship is open to applicants from all backgrounds and from across the globe. Since its creation, controversy has surrounded both its former exclusion of women (thus leading to the establishment of the co-educational Marshall Scholarship), and Rhodes'Anglo-supremacist beliefs and legacy of colonialism. Not to be confused with Road Scholar. Prominent recipients of the Rhodes Scholarship include former President of Pakistan Wasim Sajjad, former Australian Prime Ministers Tony Abbott, Bob Hawke and Malcolm Turnbull, former President of the United States Bill Clinton, former United States National Security Advisor and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, and South Bend, Indiana mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, as well as several Nobel laureates. Some people offered this scholarship have not accepted it; as a teenager Professor Sir Alimmudin Zumla declined the scholarship to study Medicine.