He had never been on a plane before 1995, when he left his native Orissa, India, at age 23 with a one-way ticket to Logan, Utah, to pursue a master's degree in economics on an academic scholarship to Utah State University.

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Once a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, he has a degree in philosophy, politics and economics, and a master's degree in military science.

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Raised in suburban Long Island, Ruddy earned a master's degree in public policy from the London School of Economics, signed on as a journalist first at the New York Post, then as a national correspondent for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, owned by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.

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The programme aims to send 200 students a year to take a year-long master's degree at Tsinghua - in subjects including public policy, international relations, economics and business, and engineering - from 2016.

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