Education

The Starr Foundation’s endowed scholarship and financial aid contributions help students achieve their academic and professional goals regardless of their economic circumstances. C.V. Starr’s gifts during his lifetime, even before he established his Foundation, supported the education of students he recognized as highly talented but lacking the financial resources to attend college. His earliest scholarships were granted to students, often children of employees, from Cambodia, China, England, the Philippines, Japan, and Taiwan. Notably, two of the first scholarships were given to Chinese women in the 1950s, one who majored in mathematics at Boston University, and another who majored in chemical engineering at the Pratt Institute and went on to work in nuclear engineering at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

On Mr. Starr’s 74th birthday, a group of students he had supported gave him a silver plate with an inscribed quote by Aristotle: “They who educate children are more honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.”

—Cornelius Vander Starr: 1892–1968. C.V. Starr & Co. 1970, 15.

Nearly 70% of medical school students graduate with financial debt, which is a reality that discourages many capable students from pursuing medical degrees and dissuades young doctors from taking traditionally less remunerative medical positions, such as those in primary care or in rural clinics and other underserved areas.

The Starr Foundation has committed $115 million to enable debt-free medical education, helping to ensure that all students—including those from economically diverse backgrounds—graduate from medical school without financial burden. In addition to diversifying medical school student classes, the absence of debt enables more medical students to choose primary care fields such as internal or family medicine, pediatrics, and OB-GYN. Giving these new doctors the financial freedom to pursue any career path, including those areas of medicine that offer lower compensation despite their importance to society, ultimately improves the quality of and access to health care in the United States.

The Starr Foundation’s $52 million in support of schools of risk management reflects C.V. Starr’s and Maurice R. Greenberg’s special interest in educating the public about insurance and actuarial science, introducing students to this career path, and encouraging their success as future leaders in the field. The Foundation has awarded more than 200 grants to select institutions in the United States, South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe to advance the field of risk management and related disciplines; and funded education programs such as establishing insurance institutes and enhancing curricula, researching insurance-related legislation, holding leadership development workshops and conferences, providing intercultural exchange programs for actuarial students from Africa and Asia, and providing scholarship support at colleges and universities with risk management programs.

St. John’s University in New York City and Georgia State University in Atlanta are two significant partners in this endeavor.

Funding for academic enrichment and institutional support is crucial for enhancing educational opportunities and fostering global collaboration. From establishing prestigious professorships that attract leading scholars to enriching library resources for research and learning, promoting K–12 college access initiatives that prepare young learners for higher education, and enabling international exchange programs and visiting fellow programs that allow students and faculty to immerse themselves in diverse cultures and perspectives, the Foundation cultivates robust academic environments that empower individuals and strengthen institutions.