The Making of the Fulbright Program

Abstract

The nature and character of the Fulbright program were shaped by the 1946 legislation that gave it life, by the circumstance of its foreign currency financing generated by surplus property sales, by those in the State Department and in a few private organizations, and by members of the first Board of Foreign Scholarships, who transformed the Fulbright Act into the worldwide educational exchange program we know today. Early decisions by the Board were the building blocks on which the program has grown and flourished. The first bilaterial Fulbright programs depended on the negotiation of executive agreements with participating governments and the establishing of binational commissions abroad. The latter played a key role in the initial acceptance of the exchange program, in its planning and administration, and in eventual joint financing by many participating governments. Today the Fulbright program looks to the future with confidence as it proudly claims over 156,000 alumni in the United States and abroad.