Gulf students eye Canada, Australia as alternatives to US

Young people in the Gulf are increasingly looking to alternatives to American universities. United States President Donald Trump’s clampdown on foreign student visas is barely a week old, but it places the spotlight on a broader trend for Arab school-leavers to have alternatives at hand, writes Daniel Bardsley for The National.

Countries such as Canada and Australia are seen as alternatives by those concerned that tighter restrictions under Trump, who took office for the second time in January, may scupper their dream of an American education.

As The National reported earlier this year, Gulf students are increasingly shifting away from US universities, though this is not necessarily linked to the Trump administration. The number of Emiratis studying in the US nearly halved between 2015 and 2023, from 2,900 to 1,500, while the number of Saudi students in the US fell from 61,287 to 15,989 in the same period.
Full report on The National site