The Winter Honors Program at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is an intensive, fully funded educational and professional opportunity for top undergraduate students. This program provides participants the opportunity to connect with the ideas, research, and network of AEI—one of America’s preeminent public policy think tanks—through a multiday seminar led by an AEI scholar or partner instructor.
As conflicts abroad spread and debates about those conflicts intensify at home, sustained reflection is needed on how America should relate to the rest of the world. The early decades of the 21st century augur a future defined by new battlefields, evolving technologies, and novel tactics. Amid all this change, our current situation warrants serious thought about what the future might hold and what the past could teach us. AEI’s 2027 Winter Honors Program will offer five seminars that address what America’s role abroad should be, featuring AEI’s Audrye Wong on China’s economic statecraft, Heather A. Conley on competition in the Arctic, and Todd Harrison on space strategy, Paul D. Miller (Georgetown University) on just-war ethics, and Matthew C. Waxman (Columbia Law School) and Luke J. Schumacher (University of Virginia) on American war powers.
AEI’s Honors Program, offered each winter and summer, assembles diverse cohorts of students from a wide range of campuses, interests, and ideological perspectives to engage in substantive dialogue and debate about the most pressing issues facing the country and world. The program’s core feature is a series of discussion-based seminars that offer participants forums to delve deeply into policy areas of their choice. Outside of the seminars, students will participate in briefings with distinguished guests, high-level networking opportunities and site visits, and meals with other public-spirited students from a wide range of campuses and academic backgrounds. Upon completing an Honors Program seminar, students will receive a stipend and, if they are not a member already, be inducted into AEI’s Collegiate Network. Learn more about the Collegiate Network here.
Location: Charleston, SC
Dates: January 5–9, 2027. The program will begin Tuesday evening and conclude on Saturday morning.
Funding: This is a fully funded program. Participants will receive reimbursement for travel to Charleston, housing for the nights of the program, a $150 stipend, and most meals on class days. Students will receive their stipend and travel reimbursement upon completing the seminar and an exit survey.
Class size: ~15 students per seminar.
