Vivek Ramaswamy Starts $250,000 Scholarship Program to ‘Foster National Pride Among’ America’s Youth

Vivek Ramaswamy
VivekGRamaswamy/Twitter
Nick Gilbertson

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and his wife Apoorva are launching a scholarship program to “foster American national pride among” the nation’s youth.

The program, called the Vivek Ramaswamy American Identity Scholarship, will provide ten high school students with $25,000 “for post-secondary education, entrepreneurial endeavors, or their commitment to serve in the military or law enforcement role,” his campaign stated in a release. 

In a video tweeted Wednesday morning, Ramaswamy said that students are asked to submit “a compelling and concise video explaining why it is they’re proud to be an American, and most importantly, what it means to be an American.”

“That’s something that we don’t talk about enough. Ask young people across the country today, ‘What does it mean to be an American?’ You often get a blank stare in response,” he explained. “That’s the vacuum at the heart of our national soul.” 

The nonprofit Incubate Debate will administer the program, and a panel of ten judges will select the winners. 

Ramaswamy pointed to a Morning Consult poll published in January that found only 16 percent of Generation Z respondents and 36 percent of Millennial respondents are “proud to live in the United States.” 

“We have a 25 percent recruitment deficit in the U.S. military. Amongst users of TikTok, who are teenagers, about 60 percent of them say they would rather give up their right to vote than give up their social media accounts,” he said, adding: 

This is dire, but we’re not going to sit around and wait for the government to solve all of our problems. Many of those problems require those of us who are parents, those of us who have lived the American Dream, to step up and do our part in addressing those problems as well. That’s what we’re doing today.

He also noted that the scholarship is in honor of his son Arjun, who turned one year old on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the family marched in Ramaswamy’s hometown Independence Day parade. 

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