President Parrish petitions president

As Clinton traveled to Vietnam in November, a petition was sent requesting the president to include in his agenda putting Vietnam's war debt payments "into a Scholarship Fund to support the training of Vietnamese students at U.S. institutions of higher learning." The heads of five major national educational organizations and almost forty presidents of colleges and universities, including WPI's President Parrish, signed the petition. Other notable signers were the presidents of Columbia University, Wellesley, and Tulane.

After the Vietnam War, Vietnam's Communist government was required to pay $150 million in war debts to the United States. This debt was broken into $7.5 - 9 million installments to be paid over 20 years. The petition does not request "for conventional forgiveness of this unusual debt, but rather, as a bold act of reconciliation, reallocation of the payment."

Why should the war debt money be reallocated? According to the petition, U.S. colleges educate "half a million international students annually. However, barely 1,500 come from Vietnam…the number of Vietnamese students who can afford advanced study in the U.S. shall remain small without a substantial infusion of resources." U.S. colleges and universities would be given money from the Scholarship Fund "for the Vietnamese students' tuition, fees, insurance, housing, meals and travel," channeling several million dollars into the economy. The money from the Fund could "also be used to cover the U.S.-based costs of Americans wishing to study in Vietnam."

The petition also cites Vietnam's own efforts to send scholars to other countries. "Vietnam has already demonstrated the importance it attaches to education by committing its own national budget to sending 400…students abroad each year." The goal of this effort "is to produce the educated workforce and leadership needed to renovate the country's economy, legal system and governance."

Just as China has shifted its economy to a capitalistic system, it is hoped Vietnam can renovate itself in the same way. After all, "U.S. colleges and universities make an important contribution to many countries with similar modernizations goals" by training their students. Similar aid for Vietnam, with the costs being covered by the Scholarship Fund, would have a "great impact on Vietnam's need for trained leadership in every sector and on long-term ties between" the two countries. The petition was drafted by the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, which has led movements to increase educational exchanges with Vietnam since 1985.