//Student weighs in on China, U.S. foreign aid policies

Student weighs in on China, U.S. foreign aid policies

Which country has a better foreign aid policy – the United States or China?

Furman alumnus Davis Cousar ’20 pondered the question for some time before deciding he would tackle it as his senior research project.

When the paper won a senior honors essay award, he was thrilled. But when it was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Political Science, he was stunned.

“It’s exciting,” he said. “Undergraduates don’t get published that often.”

It’s so rare that Brent F. Nelsen, professor of politics and international affairs, remembers only one other in his 31 years at Furman.

“You have to be pretty ambitious and quick out of the blocks after you’ve graduated to get an article polished up enough to send off for review,” he said. “And Davis is one of the most successful I’ve ever seen.”

Cousar, 23, grew up in Anderson, South Carolina, about 30 miles from Furman. Though he was set to attend graduate school in London, those plans were dashed by the pandemic.

So, in July, he moved to Washington, D.C. to take a job as a research assistant with the American Institutes for Research, though he still plans to pursue a public policy graduate degree one day.

The political science and economics major said a series of Furman experiences led him to his research topic, including attending the 2018 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Papua New Guinea, which featured Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence talking about their nations’ foreign aid.

Essentially,