Via Kim Martin in thepienews.com: On the heels of the first Saudi-US Higher Education Partnerships Forum, co-organised by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Education, the US Embassy, and IIE, and held in Riyadh,The PIE sat down with Michael Ratney, US ambassador to Saudi Arabia to explore the evolving landscape of educational collaboration between the two nations. “There’s a decades long educational affinity between Saudi and the US,” said Ratney. “Saudi Arabia has been sending students to the US for decades… We think there’s probably over 700,000 Saudis that have studied in the US over the years.” Historically, much of this outbound mobility has been, and continues to be, driven by the Saudi’s government scholarship program – the King Abdullah Scholarship program. In recent years, Vision 2030 – Saudi’s national economic and social transformation program – has meant the sending of students has been more focused.
