Dive Brief:
- Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Northwestern all offer branch campuses in Qatar’s Education City, developing their global brands while allowing Qatar residents to access the best of U.S. higher education without traveling abroad.
- The Washington Post reports a foundation created by the Qatari ruling family disburses more than $320 million per year to support the six branch campuses in Education City, which was created to spur on the nation’s knowledge-based economy.
- U.S. universities that choose to open campuses in Qatar must contend with strict government control, far more modest social mores, and challenges to recruiting faculty for the positions — though faculty and deans do report complete academic freedom.
Dive Insight:
The University of Virginia was set to become the first U.S. university to open a branch campus in Qatar, but its board of directors rejected the plan in 1999. Cornell agreed to open a medical school in Education City in 2001, and Hunter R. Rawlings III, Cornell’s president at the time, told The Washington Post part of the rationale was to counter the United States’ other involvement in the Middle East — namely with guns and for oil.
Qatar has provided a global stage for U.S institutions. Many of the residents of the small Gulf nation are expatriates from other countries, providing high levels of diversity in the programs. Acceptance rates tend to be higher and tuition is about the same. While institutions face questions over whether they are providing as rigorous an education, the goal is to do exactly that.