The Charles Koch Institute was founded in 2011 by the billionaire industrialist to run educational programs that give students and professionals a deeper understanding of markets and politics. Its main work in influencing future generations is done through four programs.
The year-long Koch Associate Program places young people in full-time jobs at public-policy organizations in the Washington, D.C., area while providing a full day each week of classroom training. The Koch Internship Program is a similar venture that works with college students for just one semester. The Koch Fellows Program is much the same but places students in organizations across the country. And the Institute’s Liberty@Work effort offers Web-based professional training based on a similar economics-and-politics curriculum. More than 3,000 alumni of these programs had graduated into permanent careers by the end of 2015, and about 350 additional individuals are trained every year.
Charles Koch also makes grants to hundreds of colleges around the country to support student programs, particularly those emphasizing entrepreneurship, and citizenship. A $10 million gift went to Catholic University in 2016, for instance, and in 2017 the Koch Foundation and the Huntsman Foundation combined on a $50 million gift to Utah State University for business and civics instruction and research.
- Charles Koch Institute, charleskochinstitute.org/educational-programs