Being a Rhodes Scholar is quite an accomplishment and comes with extraordinary benefits.
Not only is full tuition paid, but students also receive a generous stipend to live on, and may receive additional scholarships through Oxford.
This scholarship is quite prestigious and can give a Rhodes Scholar an advantage when looking for employment after completing a degree.
Study at Oxford also presents numerous opportunities for a Rhodes Scholar to network and establish long-term relationships with professors and future world leaders.
It is remarkable how many ‘Rhodes Scholars’, as they are called, go on to become leaders of counties or heads of intelligence agencies, education, and other subject areas important to the Elite, or ‘advisors’ to those leaders.)
A partial list of US “movers and shakers” who are Rhodes scholars include:
R. James Woolsey 1963 Director of Central Intelligence Agency (1993–1995), core member of the Project for the New American Century (1997–), senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton (2002–)
Robert Reich 1968 American commentator and author, U.S. Secretary of Labor (1993–1997), Chancellor’s Professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley (2006–)
Bill Clinton 1968 American politician, 42nd president of the United States, 1993–2001, Governor of Arkansas, 1979–1981 & 1983–1993
Russ Feingold 1975 U.S. Senator (D-Wis.) 1993–2011
Mel Reynolds 1975 U.S. Congressman (Illinois), 1993–1995; convicted felon pedophile
Ashton Carter 1976 Former Harvard professor and United States Deputy Secretary of Defense (October 2011 – December 2013), former United States Secretary of Defense
Eric Lander 1978 Chair of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, founder of the Human Genome Project, biology professor at MIT
George Stephanopoulos 1984 Moderator of ABC’s This Week and communications director for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign
Susan Rice 1986 U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (1997–2001), United States Ambassador to the United Nations, (2009–2013), National Security Advisor (2013–2017)
Jacob Weisberg 1987 Journalist and editor of Slate magazine
Cory Booker 1992 Former mayor of Newark, New Jersey; 2013 elected Democratic US Senator from New Jersey
Pete Buttigieg 2005 Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
Ronan Farrow 2012 American human rights activist , senior foreign policy official in the Obama administration, U.S. State Department special adviser on global youth issues and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Bruce Reed 1982 Former Chief of Staff to Vice President Joe Biden
Few people know the origins of the scholarship. Well here it is:
Cecil John Rhodes PC (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate, and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.
An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his British South Africa Company founded the southern African territory of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), which the company named after him in 1895. South Africa’s Rhodes University is also named after him. Rhodes set up the provisions of the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate.
One of Rhodes’s primary motivations in politics and business was his professed belief that the Anglo-Saxon race was, to quote a letter of 1877, “the first race in the world”. Under the reasoning that “the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race”
So, it could be said that the seed money for the Rhodes scholarships was filthy lucre accumulated off the backs of black people slaving in Rhodes’ mines in Rhodesia and South Africa.
Again, who were some prominent recipients?
Bill Clinton
Susan Rice
Corey Booker
Rachel Maddow
Pete Buttigieg
I wonder if they will be giving the money back since their benefactor was such a loathsome racist.
Not likely.