BOSTON (AP) - Forty-six U.S. students have been awarded the 2020 Marshall Scholarship, the second-largest class of scholars in the program’s 66-year history and among the most diverse.
The U.K. government mainly funds the scholarships and announced them Sunday. Minority students make up more than one-third of next year’s group and and nearly two-thirds of the students are women.
The 2019 class of scholars is the largest, with 48 students.
The scholarships enable intellectually distinguished young Americans to study for up to three years at any U.K. institution. The 2020 group includes entrepreneurs, documentary filmmakers, record-holding Division I athletes, Shakespearean actors and climate scientists, according to the British Embassy. More than 1,000 students applied.
The program, created in 1953, began as a gesture of gratitude to the U.S. for assistance the U.K. received after World War II under the Marshall Plan, the program that aided in Europe’s economic recovery between 1948 and 1951.
Christopher Fisher, who chairs the Marshall Commission, said that while the program’s origins recognize the generosity of the past, “its continuing currency reflects the value of supporting the promise of the future.”
Washington State University and Rutgers University-New Brunswick will participate for the first time in their schools’ histories.
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