A number of reports have indicated that the popular King Abdullah Scholarship Program (KASP) that has placed hundreds of thousands of Saudi students at academic institutions all over the world is being reviewed and can anticipate significant changes with regard to the program’s size and scope. In 2014 over 207,000 Saudi students and dependents were part of KASP at a cost of $6 billion.
Modifications of the program are of keen interest not only to Saudi students but also to academic administrators around the globe. A report by Elizabeth Redden in Inside Higher Education notes that because of the large numbers of Saudi students and the fact that they pay higher out-of-state tuition rates, even small adjustments in the so-called “Saudi student boom” can have a significant impact on U.S. colleges and universities.
Founded in 2005 and one of the late King Abdullah’s legacy programs, the scholarship fund covers full tuition, medical insurance, a monthly stipend for living expenses, and an annual round-trip airfare for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students. Previously, there were few restrictions on where and what Saudis could study. The KASP served as much as a cross-cultural exchange between young Saudis and universities around the world as a program to educate Saudi’s future generations.
“Here’s what is clear. The number of Saudis coming to intensive English programs, a first indicator of changes in enrollment patterns, is declining,” Redden writes, while also noting that the restrictions seem to be based on lists of “top” Universities, while not saying exactly which rankings would be used.
While Saudi Arabia is re-assessing the KASP – as well as all other major government expenditures – in light of its $98 billion 2015 budget deficit and reduced oil revenues, there is also an interest in evolving the program to better suit Saudi Arabia’s economic and employment priorities.
Redden notes that the KASP, “started with aims of improving relations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and which is now being refashioned in an attempt to help meet the kingdom’s economic needs. In 2015 the Saudi government rolled out a new slogan, “Your Job and Your Scholarship,” to reflect a new strategy of tying scholarship awards to employment offers in the kingdom after graduation.”
The new scholarship program guidelines are reportedly significantly tighter and limit participants to those attending one of the top 100 universities globally, or studying a program rated in the top 50 in its field, according to a CNN Money report, which also noted that the government is cutting overall spending on education by 12% this year. Scholarship students will also be required to maintain minimum grade point averages.
Roughly 90% of students from Saudi Arabia studying abroad are supported by the fund. Education and training still represents one of the highest areas of spending by the Saudi government in its 2016 budget.
