\u201cAccording to his biographers, he found his experience as a Rhodes Scholar so transforming and so, so significant for him,\u201d said Gerardo Blanco, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College. As he noted, Fulbright also saw the educational exchange between the US and other countries as a morally sanitary use of money the government made off of selling US military surplus \u2014 items you might find in an army or navy store \u2014 left across a war-ravaged Europe<\/a> at the end of World War II.<\/p>\n Fulbright\u2019s more-complicated legacy in the US is overshadowed by his more high-minded goal of creating international dialogue, Blanco explained.<\/p>\n \u201cPart of the challenge is that J. William Fulbright advocated for racial segregation in the United States,\u201d he continued. \u201cAt the same time, in the global sphere, he advocated mutual understanding, saying, \u2018We don\u2019t necessarily have to like each other, but we should be in dialogue with each other.\u2019 And I think that is very powerful within the Fulbright program.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past 79 years, the program has awarded over 400,000 scholarships to US and non-US citizens. About half of all Fulbright scholars are Americans heading overseas, and the other half usually come to the US as international students and researchers. <\/p>\n Putting aside the value of this knowledge exchange, there\u2019s a reason why the program is run by the US State Department. <\/p>\n \u201cThe most effective programs that I have seen in terms of value to the United States and value to the recipient countries are exchange programs. Fulbright, of course, is one of the premier,\u201d said William Taylor, a former ambassador to Ukraine and who has served as a diplomat across Eastern Europe and the Middle East under the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations.<\/p>\n The former ambassador said programs like Fulbright are a crucial, yet quiet, element of US foreign policy strategy known as \u201csoft power,\u201d with a concept that America can influence the rest of the world on the merit of its values, culture and democratic principles.\u00a0<\/p>\n When academics come to the US from abroad as Fulbright Scholars, Taylor said, they get to see what the US is really like. And that experience has a long-lasting influence.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat connection, affects them and when they come to a decision, if they become a member of parliament or as they become a person in business, as they are making decisions, that understanding of the United States and of our culture, of our people and individuals, has an effect, which is in our interest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Since the program started, 44 heads of foreign governments<\/a> have been Fulbright Scholars \u2014 at the cost of about $3 billion per year.<\/p>\n And the program has found bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. <\/p>\n \u201cIt seems like every time you’re in a foreign country and you\u2019re visiting with the cabinet members,\u00a0 half of them are Fulbright Scholars and they\u2019re very, very proud of it,\u201d said Senator John Boozman, a Republican from Fulbright\u2019s home state of Arkansas.\u00a0<\/p>\n In May, Boozman urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to, not only preserve the Fulbright program, but also strengthen it.<\/p>\n Currently, the State Department\u2019s proposed budget for 2026 would cut spending<\/a> on exchange programs by 93%. But the squeeze on the program has already been felt by scholars. <\/p>\n In February, the Department of State froze grant funding to current Fulbright recipients, leaving international scholars stranded in the US and American scholarship holders \u2014 like Dr. Nicole E. Williams, stuck without money overseas.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of my colleagues said, \u2018Hey, I didn\u2019t get my second set of funding. Do you know anything about it,\u2019\u201d Williams told WBEZ in April<\/a>. \u201cNone of us knew anything about it. Then, finally, we heard on the news that the funding had been cut.\u201d Williams is a gynecologist from Chicago who was conducting research at a university in Uganda. <\/p>\n As a Fulbright Scholar, her research was supposed to help make pregnancy and childbirth safer for mothers in the area. <\/p>\n And it wasn\u2019t just her grant money that disappeared; America\u2019s soft power footprint was also leaving Uganda.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t go anywhere without seeing a USAID sign here in Uganda, and many of the places where I\u2019ve been \u2014 now it\u2019s all gone,\u201d she said. \u201cThe reason why we\u2019re loved so much is because we do this kind of work.\u201d<\/p>\n While the government resumed funding for current Fulbright Scholars, many international scholarship recipients who were supposed to come to the US this year learned in May that their projects were reassessed and rejected by the State Department.<\/p>\n Despite already being approved by the Fulbright program, and after a yearlong application process, Saara Loukola, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki in Finland, got a one-sentence email that said her project was \u201cnot compliant\u201d with the US government. <\/p>\n Her Fulbright project was supposed to examine how teachers in the US learn to address racism in the classroom.<\/p>\n Loukola believes the project was declined because it conflicts with a specific Trump administration order to \u201cterminate diversity, equity and inclusion offices, positions and programs in the federal government.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n She is not alone. A recent report by Inside Higher Ed<\/a> found a pattern of such reassessed and rejected Fulbright projects in other countries: 40% of Norway\u2019s 2025 Fulbright cohort was also cut.<\/p>\n Instead of getting the opportunity to learn from how teachers in a diverse country like the US address racism in schools, Loukola said the State Department\u2019s decision goes against one of the core goals of the program: dialogue.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s one of the principles of academia that we can disagree, and if this opportunity for dialogue is stopped from the beginning, that means it is truly impacting the ways we do research,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The State Department did not respond to The World\u2019s request for comment. <\/p>\n Former Ambassador William Taylor warned that damage done to the program now could damage US foreign policy down the line. <\/p>\n \u201cThat will have a direct effect on our relations over time,\u201d said Taylor. \u201cIt will be a cost that we won\u2019t see immediately. It\u2019s hard to measure the effect of any individual exchange program, [as they]are valuable over time.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps one measure is just how many more foreign heads of state will be former Fulbright Scholars.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The post One of the best examples of ‘soft power’ is on the chopping block, experts say<\/a> appeared first on The World from PRX<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1946, a senator from Arkansas, James William Fulbright, proposed an ambitious idea: Create an educational exchange program to rival the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship in the UK. \u201cAccording to his biographers, he found his experience as a Rhodes Scholar so transforming and so, so significant for him,\u201d said Gerardo Blanco, director of the Center for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":283033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112516,97917,112517],"tags":[3657,56081,11560,11595,1783,209],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-283032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development-education","category-education","category-fulbright-scholarship","tag-block","tag-chopping","tag-examples","tag-experts","tag-power","tag-soft"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/media.pri.org\/s3fs-public\/uploads\/2025\/06\/2025-06-06-LUMINA-james-william-fulbright-1020x1024.jpg\")