2,500 Scholarships Award for American Studies

The Crown Prince s recent visit to US President George W. Bush s ranch in Crawford, Texas, helped mend the fences between the Kingdom and the United States. Relations between the two countries suffered a blow following the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

About 2,500 scholarships for study at American universities are among the most recent signs of renewed relations between the two countries following the months-long visa issuance process Saudis have endured recently.

Dr. Abdullah Ibrahim Al-Mogil , undersecretary at the Ministry of Higher Education for Cultural Affairs, said the ministry has accepted applications of about 2,500 students who applied for scholarships in the American universities. He said the ministry will finalize their procedures soon.

In a posting last week (here), I noted that the US and Saudi Arabia were discussing how to get Saudi students back into American universities. According to this Saudi Gazette article, they’ve come up with a plan. The number is about right, too.

I point out that these scholarships are coming from the Saudis–although they will use the same bureaucracy to place privately-funded students too. The US government contribution to these scholarships is nil; the Fulbright Scholarship Program, funded by the US, currently sends only a handful of Saudi professors and researchers to the US for one or two years maximum, with a reciprocal number of Americans traveling to Saudi Arabia.