People have plenty of good reasons to settle down in the Midwest. Now there's one more to add to the list: $160,000.
Stanford University has launched a new fellowship that will give up to three students a full ride to its MBA program if they agree to live in the Midwest for two years after they graduate. When you add up tuition and fees, that amounts to, yes, $160,000 over two years.
Why the Midwest? Stanford apparently considers it an "underserved region" where it wants to promote economic development. Even Minnesota, home to the Twin Cities and its 17 Fortune 500 companies and highly educated workforce, qualifies.
"Talent is distributed broadly across the world," says the website for the Stanford USA MBA Fellowship. "For this reason, Stanford [Graduate School of Business] offers a variety of fellowships that attract and provide financial assistance to talented leaders from countries, regions and populations that are underserved. In turn, these leaders increase the diversity of experiences and perspectives within the Stanford MBA class."
Applicants must have a financial need and show some sort of strong tie to the Midwest such as being a current or past resident of the region or having graduated from high school in one of those states.
Within two years of graduation, the recipients then must move to the Midwest and work for at least two years "in a professional role that will contribute to the region's economic development."
And if you don't, yes, you have to repay the fellowship in full. All $160,000 of it.
Down the road, Stanford plans to focus the fellowship to other "underserved" regions of the U.S. — Southern California perhaps?
