In 2000, two years before he left Congress, Benjamin A. Gilman worked with his colleagues to establish the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program. This program has since provided over 19,000 scholarships to U.S. undergraduate students who receive Federal Pell grants.
The Gilman program has been a study abroad success story. African Americans participate in Gilman at three and a half times the national rate for study abroad overall, Hispanics at two and half times, and Asian Americans at double the rate. Reflecting the program’s encouragement of non-traditional study abroad destinations, 71 percent of Gilman Scholars study abroad outside of Western Europe, with China the most popular destination.
