Support Our Scholarship Initiative

Leading the Way

Pardee RAND’s 2020 entering cohort is our largest to date. We expect our student body to grow, which is why we have an urgent—and an increasing—need for scholarship support. We offer full tuition scholarships to all first-year students, and partial tuition scholarships for the second year of study. We’re committed to keeping our graduate program accessible to all students.

Scholarship contributions will help our students take action and effect real change throughout the world. Join us on this new adventure for our new world.

Susan L. Marquis

Frank and Marcia Carlucci Dean, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Vice President of Innovation, RAND Corporation

Inspired Support | Inspiring Leaders

Pardee RAND students are catalyzing new solutions for a fundamentally changed world. With access to the graduate school’s leading edge methods and capabilities, and supported with scholarship funding, students are empowered to apply research and analysis in groundbreaking ways to improve the lives of individuals throughout the world. Inspired scholarship support is inspiring students to take action, helping them lead change today for a new tomorrow.

Giving in Action
Scholarship contributions directly benefit our students. For Gursel Aliyev, cohort ’13, philanthropic support enabled him to attend Pardee RAND and complete the Ph.D. program.

Meet the 2020 Cohort

A record-breaking 39 students accepted admission to Pardee RAND’s 2020 cohort. Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, 33 students will join the graduate program—the largest entering cohort in the school’s history. These newest students, 11 women and 22 men from across the United States and internationally, bring with them research, work, and volunteer experiences from organizations around the globe. Of the U.S. students, more than half are non-White and/or Hispanic.

The cohort also represents another first. These students launch Pardee RAND’s three new policy engagement streams: Research, Analysis, and Design; Community-Partnered Policy and Action; and Technology Applications and Implications.

Why I Chose Pardee RAND

Although there are always policies being made, they are not always translated and implemented with the intention of the policy. I want to combat these problems by including communities for more effective and efficient change. This cannot be done without knowing how to analyze a policy and break it down for those it will impact. My hopes for my future include aiding in writing policies that fix complex problems with communities in mind and researching how we can continue to solve these problems.

Khadesia Howell

Community-Partnered Policy and Action Engagement Stream
Ten years ago, I never thought I would pursue a Ph.D. I was convinced of my ability to change the world through quicker means. After the experiences of the past decade, I see that in order to effect the change that I hope to see in climate policy and to reach my full career potential, I need the intellectual diversity and wide breadth of skills that Pardee RAND has concentrated into a single institution.

Alex Wong

Research, Analysis, and Design Policy Engagement Stream
Throughout my career, and in my position at an education advocacy organization, I recognized the urgent need for sharper, more refined analyses of data to better identify existing inequities within neighborhoods, which impact public education. Schools are situated in a social context, amidst complex community relationships, local economies, and labor and housing markets. I want to deepen my understanding of these dynamics, particularly along the lines of race and income, that impact the implementation of any social policy.

Lisa Berdie

Community-Partnered Policy and Action Engagement Stream
My father is in the construction business and I have been accompanying him to job sites, especially sites in a cement manufacturing plant. During my frequent visits, the image of chimney stacks releasing smoke made me ponder the extent of pollution over the world. The sight of migrant workers fetching water from a nearby river with the discharge of manufacturing refuse motivated me to pursue research in sustainable and alternate cementitious systems, which inadvertently led to my decision to pursue a career in public policy.

Swaptik Chowdhury

Technology Applications and Implications Policy Engagement Stream