A new scholarship program will help female students from rural regions in Sichuan province, a Chinese-American philanthropist announced recently. "Compared with China's coastal areas, the quality of education in interior parts of China is far disadvantaged," Julia Chang Bloch, founder and president of the US-China Education Trust (USCET), told China Daily. "So we hope to change the current phenomenon of rural students in China that have been left behind in their access to higher education compared with their urban counterparts. The US-based organization, founded in 1998, launched the Advisory Council Scholarship Fund at Sichuan Normal University on Nov 13. The fund will help five women undergraduates at the school with a scholarship of $750 a year for four years.