Abstract:

Studying abroad has increased tremendously recently in Saudi Arabia, thanks to the government generous spending. Scholarships to study abroad (scholarship-students) have increased 3.5 times over a cycle of four years, jumping from 11.9 thousands in 2005 to 42.8 thousands in 2009. As delineated in the 8th National Development Plan, sending citizens to study abroad is to enrich their understanding of the critical development issues; they could be more open to cultures of others and have more realistic views. However, it is a massive investment that must be evaluated. Hence, the current study investigates the quality of education being provided for Saudi scholarship-students and the difficulties that may reduce the national and individual returns to study abroad. Methodologically, the study will be mix, quantitative and qualitative. Databases of the Ministry of Higher Education will help estimate how the scholarship-students are distributed by the international quality-rank of universities. Qualitatively, deep interviews, with officials in the Saudi Cultural Bureaus, Ministry of Higher Education and Universities, and with some of the students returning from abroad, as well as the open-ended questions that will steer up discussions in the internet forums of scholarship-students, will, collectively, enrich understanding of the difficulties of study abroad.