Politicians venturing into education is by no means an exclusively Indian phenomenon. Through history and around the world, prominent politicians have built great and durable education institutions to fulfill national development objectives. Among them:
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). The third president of the United States (1801-09), Jefferson founded the University of Virginia in 1819. Since then over the past 150 years, the university has grown in stature and reputation and is currently (2009) ranked the second best public university in the US by US News & World Report. It offers 51 bachelors, 84 Masters, two first-professional degree (law and medicine) and 57 doctoral programmes to 21,000 enrolled students.
Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin (1761-1849). A Swiss-American ethnologist, linguist, politician, diplomat, Congressman, and the longest-serving US treasury secretary (1801-1814), Albert Gallatin founded New York University in 1831. Currently the university boasts an enrollment of 40,000 students educated in 14 academic schools.
Amasa Leland Stanford (1824-1893). Lawyer, railroad magnate, and the first Republican governor of California, Stanford founded the Leland Stanford Junior University, California in 1885. Today Stanford University, sited on farmland donated by its eponymous founder who also endowed it with an initial grant of US $20 million, is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s premier research universities. With an aggregate enrollment of 6,700 undergraduate and 8,000 graduate students, Stanford U is highly respected for its business, law and medical education schools.
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand (1767-1835). Linguist and philosopher, Ferdinand promoted The Humboldt University of Berlin in 1810 when he was Prussia’s minister for education. This is Berlin’s oldest university and has produced 29 Nobel prize winners (including Albert Einstein, 1921) and boasts an enrollment of 35,000 students in its 11 faculties.
Henry Brougham. Lawyer, politician and Lord Chancellor (chairman of the House of Lords), UK, Brougham together with poet Thomas Campbell established the University of London in 1825, the first university to admit women on equal terms with men. Ranked among the top 25 universities worldwide, it has an enrollment of 22,000 students and has produced 20 Nobel Prize winners.
Andrew Cornell White (1832-1918). The US ambassador to Germany (1879-1881) and Russia (1892-1894), White co-founded Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in 1865. Today this blue-chip university has an enrollment of 20,833 students in its seven undergraduate, six graduate and four professional schools spread over three campuses. During the past 144 years since it was established, Cornell has nurtured 40 Nobel Prize winners from within its faculty and student bodies.