Fulbright Scholarships all but cancelled

[poetryandwine]

The NY Times is reporting that President Trump is about to issue an executive order severely cutting back State Dept resources. Key aspects of the draft order are discussed.

One piece of the draft order is that the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship programme, supporting bilateral Master’s and PhD study between the UK and the US, will be severely curtailed. It will be restricted to students studying for a Master’s degree in the area of national security.

The 2026-27 application cycle is currently underway. There was no mention of when this will take effect.

(This isn’t even the worst of the draft order. The rigorous Foreign Service Entrance Exam will be scrapped and candidates will be selected largely for their ideological views. Most embassies in Africa will be closed, ceding the continent to China and Russia and probably increasing the terrorism threat. Etc. It is almost unbelievable even for this government)

Now I will get some sunshine while it lasts.

Just contributing a random fact, with no particular relevance: Rishi Sunak was a Fulbright scholar.

Thank you! I am happy to acknowledge he did some good things.

Other Fulbright Scholarship alumni include Americans Sylvia Plath and Bill Clinton; a few examples from the British side are the writer Malcolm Bradbury, the Fields medallist Michael Atiyah, the Lib Dem politician Charles Kennedy and the architect Richard Rogers.

These choices are fairly random! Fulbright Scholarships have launched many impressive careers.

NB Many Fulbright Scholars have participated in other programmes, for early career or established researchers. The NY Times did not discuss those programmes

Wasn’t Bill Clinton a Rhodes Scholar? Probably renamed.

@poetryandwine It’s absolutely awful. America turning inwards. America first and all that.

You are correct about Bill Clinton, @TizerorFizz .

The programme was only created by President Truman in the 1950s and no US presidents are listed as alumni. A good number of heads of state and prime ministers are, however, as well as Nobel Laureates, MacArthur Fellows and other such.

Turns out that it is not just the Fulbright Scholarships but the entire programme that the Trump administration proposes to cancel. (The ‘Fulbright Scholars’ are an example of one of the well known programmes for established researchers). Can I trade you the physicist Peter Higgs, the Fields medallist Terry Tao and King Felipe for Bill Clinton, @TizerorFizz ?

@poetryandwine Of course. I find this cavalier approach to international learning depressing. Greater understanding of each other is never wasted. I guess it’s another aspect of playing to the “base” who would not necessarily appreciate the value of such programmes.

The cancellation isn’t a done thing yet. The Fulbright Foundation website (in America) says the Foundation and others similarly affected plan to fight.

The courts have generally been ruling that Trump is obliged to spend money Congress has already allocated, so the Fulbright programmes should be unfrozen (they are frozen or at least well chilled in the US, in resource terms). However I don’t know of any law that says the president must continue to allocate the money.

I wonder how many of the base have passports?