Rhodes scholarship for studying at University of Oxford to be available to more Indians from 2028

The Rhodes Scholarship Trust, which offers the prestigious scholarship for studying at University of Oxford, is aiming to increase number of scholarships for Indians from 2028 to align with the country’s population strength, according to Sir Richard Trainor, the trust’s CEO.

Trainor, who was in India ahead of the announcement of applications for 2026 academic session, told PTI in an interview that presently six scholarships are offered to Indian candidates annually.”The priority now is to try to get some additional scholarships for places where the number of scholars per head of population could be higher and India is one of those places.

So, we have six scholarships a year for India, which is good, but there are a billion and a half people in this country, as you know, so there should be more scholarships,” Trainor, who is also the interim warden of the Rhodes House, said.”We are trying to raise money for additional scholarships, because the trust needs to have that money in the endowment in order to pay the fees to the University of Oxford and to pay the living expenses of the scholars,” he said. The other countries on radar for increasing the number of scholarships are China and Africa. At present four scholarships are offered to candidates from China and 21 from Africa.

"We would like to have some additional scholars in each of these three areas by the time of the 125th anniversary of the scholarship scheme, which is 2028. We are going to have a big push on fund raising between now and the 125th anniversary,” he said. Trainor, who himself was a Rhodes Scholar back in 1970, says people often talk about the Rhodes Scholarship transforming their lives. ”…it also transformed mine. I had barely been out of the United States at the time that I took up the scholarship and, you know, it broadened my view of the world and led to my becoming a historian of another country and then making my career in another country and so on.