settled near Louisiana State University. Jindal attended Baton Rouge Magnet High School, graduating in 1988. While in high school, he competed in tennis tournaments, started various enterprises such as a computer newsletter, retail candy business, and a mail-order software company. He spent free time working in the stands at LSU football games. Jindal graduated from Brown University in 1992 at the age of 20, with honors in two majors, biology and public policy. Jindal was admitted to the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME), guaranteeing him a place at Brown Medical School. He did not pursue his Medical Doctorate. Jindal has been credited with leading Brown University's College Republicans student group. Jindal was named to the 1992 USA Today All-USA Academic Team. He applied to and was accepted by both Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School, but studied as a Rhodes Scholar where he received an MLitt in political science with an emphasis in health policy from New College, Oxford in 1994. The subject of his thesis was "A needs-based approach to health care". Career After completing his studies at Oxford, Jindal turned down an offer to study for a D.Phil. in politics, instead joining the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. He then interned in the office of Rep. Jim McCrery of Louisiana, where McCrery assigned him to work on healthcare policy; Jindal spent two weeks studying Medicare to compile an extensive report on possible solutions to Medicare's financial problems, which he presented to McCrery. Early political career (1996–2003) Foster administration In 1993, U.S. Representative Jim McCrery (whom Jindal had worked for as a summer intern) introduced him to Governor Mike Foster. In 1996, Foster appointed Jindal as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, an agency that represented about 40 percent of the state budget and employed over 12,000 people. Foster called Jindal a genius who had a great deal of medical knowledge. Jindal was 24 at the time. During his tenure, Louisiana's Medicaid program went from bankruptcy with a $400 million deficit into three years of surpluses totaling $220 million. Jindal was criticized during the 2007 campaign by the Louisiana AFL–CIO for closing some local clinics to reach that surplus. Under Jindal's term, Louisiana nationally rose to third place in child healthcare screenings, with child immunizations rising, and introduced new and expanded services for the elderly and the disabled. In 1998, Jindal was appointed executive