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Saudis once saw Western degrees as a ticket to success. That calculus is fast changing.
Students from the kingdom are increasingly turning away from US universities in particular, put off by a mix of hostile immigration policies, concerns over gun violence, and the kingdom’s own push to grow its domestic education sector. Many are also drawn to staying home during a period of rapid transformation, where teenagers are trying to “Make Arabic Cool Again” and enjoying freedoms that Saudis once had to travel abroad to find.
Saudi Arabia will need to increase higher education capacity by 40% by 2030 (more than 60% of Saudis are under the age of 30), and to help meet that demand, the government has held discussions with universities in the US, Australia, Spain, and some Asian countries to bring campuses to the kingdom, an official at the Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) — which is tasked with developing the capital and enhancing education across the kingdom — told Semafor.
Private investors are also eyeing the space, aiming to replicate peers in the Gulf. Abu Dhabi has New York University, Qatar’s Education City hosts Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, and Georgetown, and Dubai plans to open an outpost of the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school in 2027. Riyadh is positioning itself as the next hub.
While Saudis students will make up the bulk of future demand, foreign students may also help fill classrooms. With more expats moving to Saudi Arabia, many families would consider branches of US and European universities, said the RCRC official, who declined to be named because she wasn’t authorized to speak to the press. Keeping more consumer spending in the kingdom is an important element of Saudi’s economic diversification strategy.
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The Saudi government has funded student scholarships to universities abroad since the 1940s. In many ways, those returning Saudis have shaped the kingdom’s industries and government, and remade the country in a way that makes studying abroad no longer the escape it once was: Enrollment in colleges abroad peaked at 100,000 in 2019 but has since dropped to less than a fifth of that number.
At the same time, domestic universities have gained credibility, especially in STEM subjects and AI, while changes in scholarship policy reduced grants and increased the burden of studying abroad. These trends have made investing in private universities more compelling, according to Mansoor Ahmed, an independent advisor for education investors in the region.
Manal’s view
At a Jeddah yacht club last month, a group of mothers who have older kids studying abroad spoke about keeping their younger ones in Saudi: A recent stabbing death of a Saudi student in Cambridge, in the UK, sparked fears that there was no way to keep them safe. Even among the Saudi “elite” who themselves studied abroad, many are now opting to keep their children in the kingdom. Some parents who are still choosing foreign universities are accompanying their children.
There are also more opportunities and internships here in Saudi Arabia that make being absent for four years or longer worrying, as students fear feeling out of place when they return. This is part of a broader cultural shift inwards, perhaps a byproduct of Vision 2030 that has boosted national pride and reduced glorification of the West. I experienced it myself when I returned from university in the US to a new Saudi.
When we were teenagers, my friends and I scoffed at those who didn’t speak perfect English. This has reversed. “Make Arabic Cool Again” is how my 17-year-old sister and her friends put it. Saudis studying abroad lose the subtleties of the language and miss out on the culture, memes, and everything else that defines this generation. Today, the English language and a Western education are fading as symbols of prestige. Many high school students are asking themselves if it’s worth giving up their friends, network, and opportunities at home for credentials in a country they almost certainly won’t settle in.
“It’s more comfortable for me to stay in Saudi, where it’s familiar and safer, than go all the way to the US where I’m not guaranteed a better job when I come back — and I get to network in Saudi during my college years,” Dana Almajeed, a freshman at Effat University in Jeddah, told me.
Notable
- Saudi students in US colleges struggle on five fronts: cultural adaptation, family/financial strain, health and social stress, and language barriers, according to a study by Saud Albeshir, a professor at King Saud University.
- Vision 2030 reforms are pushing campuses in the kingdom toward modern curricula: global partnerships and industry focused training are becoming more important, faculty members at King Khalid University found.