Without the central role played by Stanford University, there wouldn’t be a Silicon Valley — at least as we know it. The number of tech successes with ties to Stanford is too numerous for even a Stanford statistics major to count. But suffice to say the founding partners of Google met there. It’s not just a tech hub either: Stanford is renowned for sciences, its writing program, its law school, business school and more. Stanford is also recognized for its innovation in broadly distributing its educational treasures as a leader in offering online coursework around the globe.
Now Stanford has announced a Stanford USA MBA Fellowship that will pay for students to get MBAs from the school — a degree that can cost $160,000 without the scholarship. There’s a special requirement for this fellowship though: it’s for Midwesterners only. Students must have ties to the Midwest and must commit to returning there with degree in hand — to work in what Stanford calls an “underserved region.” It takes a Stanford to determine that Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin — all states with world class universities of their own — are distressed to the point where they need Stanford MBAs to help out. Simone Hill, an assistant director for MBA admissions at Stanford, told Bloomberg:
“When we look at our country, and we think about different places where there’s still a lot of room for growth and development, the Midwest was a big part of that.”
