Chartered by the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York in 1944 as a school of continuing education, its language and cultural school is the oldest educational center of its kind in the United States. It was funded with Boxer Rebellion indemnity money (paid by China to the United States) to help administer the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program that provided funding for Chinese students to study in the U.S. Kuo Ping-Wen was named as its first director. Trustees were appointed by the Chinese and American governments. The institute was a subsidiary of the China Foundation until 1929, when civil war in China compelled the Foundation to withdraw financial support. The institute was then reconstituted as an independent self-supporting organization by co-founders Monroe and Kuo Ping-Wen. The institute's School of Chinese Studies, founded in 1933, is the oldest educational center of its kind in the United States.