Name: Higher Ed's New Power Map
Uploaded: 2025-10-28
Duration: 17 min 38 s

A record number of students are pursuing higher education worldwide—but the map of where they go is changing. Rising tuition, restrictive immigration policies, safety concerns, iand stronger regional options are driving students—and their parents—to reconsider traditional destinations like the U.S. and U.K. At the same time, universities across Asia, the Middle East, and beyond are positioning themselves as new magnets for global talent in a job market being upended by technology. What are the geopolitical, cultural, and economic forces shaping higher education, and who will win the race to train and retain tomorrow's workforce? 

Higher Ed's New Power Map

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Hello ladies and gentlemen. What an honor to be here today. Thank you all for attending this very amazing session that we're gonna have with our lovely speakers. We're excited to kickstart it inshallah, and I'm gonna start with you, Doctor Lina. Saudi Arabia has been investing heavily in education as part of Vision 2030. The scholarship landscape today looks very different from what it looked like decades ago. Can you tell me a little bit about how Saudi Arabia's scholarship programs are increasingly aligned with Vision's 2030 strategic sectors? How is the ministry ensuring that the new direction translates into real world skills and employment opportunity for Saudi graduates? OK, thank you, Nora and uh thank you for having me here. It's a pleasure to be here with uh with my colleagues. So uh let's talk about the scholarship program in Saudi. Uh it has evolved, you know, for the last 100 years, and today the scholarship program, it's not about numbers and destination. It's basically about purposes. OK, so, uh, when, uh, his royal highs, the crown prince, announced the new wave of the scholarship program in 2022, uh, we have uh four specialized tracks. One of them is dedicated for students who got accepted in the top 30 universities all over the world, and we have more than 2000 students. Been accepted in such universities over the last 3 years and uh the second track is the R&D research and development and uh this is specifically for uh PhD students who want to pursue their education and and and PhD and these are aligned with the national priorities within along with the vision 2030. The fourth track, which is MA basically it's, it's aligned with. The vision 2030 and the labor market needs. The last track, which is wide, it's about the giga projects that are going on along with the 2030 vision, and we have a very strong partnership and collaboration with different private companies and we have more than 50 partnerships along with, you know, different universities around the world. Thank you so much, Doctor Lina. The future is indeed bright in the kingdom, especially with the scholarship programs and more happening here. Mr. Brier, as someone leading one of the world's most recognized educational networks, you have a unique view of how families around the world are re-evaluating their choices. Malvern College has a global footprint, and soon a new home here in Riyadh as the CEO of Malvern International, which operates schools across several regions. How are you seeing global students and parents' attitudes shift when it comes to choosing destinations for higher education? Thank you all. It's a pleasure to be here. Uh, I mean, I think really there used to be very much a dominance of the US and the UK in the past, uh, and whilst they still remain strong, what we've started to see now is much more of a sort of multipolarity in, uh, higher education. And with growing hubs around the world which Saudi Arabia is clearly already started on that journey and I think is well poised to go forward on that. And I think what we're starting to see now is our pupils are really embracing the fact that there's so much choice now around the world to go for to find things that match their character and their aspirations. And one of the things that I think is really important for them as well is this idea of global citizenship. I think in the past it was very much of I'll just go abroad to study, whereas now what we're starting to see is people see themselves as entering the international community and expecting a career within the international world, which I think is really, really important. But one of the other big pieces to that is around the concept of employability, and that's something we're particularly seeing accelerate at the moment. There are many graduates now that are coming out of universities, which means that there are more people that are graduating necessarily for the jobs that are there. I saw a rather shocking statistic in the UK earlier this week that was talking about the fact that last year there were 1.2 million graduates for 17,000 jobs, which starts to give you the idea of just how competitive that market has become. And on top of that with AI, many of those graduate jobs are changing or are more difficult for people to get into. So what we're starting to see with that is that they are looking to their universities and to their educational program to really give them that fast start to thrive as they come out and go into life. And what we're trying to do is look at this idea that you take intellectual intelligence and you enhance it with emotional intelligence and with cultural intelligence. And I think one of the benefits of, for example, having your education in Saudi Arabia and entering into that and what we're looking to do by having a Malvern College here is this idea of being able to work with anyone anywhere as a result of the skills that you can build up. You just said two key words, emotional and cultural intelligence. I think we really need to implement this for the students' upcoming show in the future. Thank you so much, Mr. Beer. Of course you're Edward Byron, it's such an honor for me to be here with you, and we've had such a great discussion beforehand. You, you have such extensive experience in many different institutions, but let's focus now on CAS and what it's doing. So CAS has built a strong reputation for world class research and global collaboration. Can you tell me about the students that you're aiming to get into the university? What's the number and percentage and more about what's happening in that area? Yeah, thank you very much. Well, look, CAST is an amazing institution. It's, uh, the 3rd great university I've had the privilege of leading as the president, and a lot of the other two have been around for, you know, a long, long time and very famous. Uh, CAST is by far the most exciting. Uh, it's, um, it is a postgraduate research university with master's and PhD students. We don't have undergraduates. Many of our students come from the elite programs run by the Ministry of Education, but we're getting more and more in kingdom Saudi students as the quality of the education system here rises and it's becoming very strong. About 60% of our students at the moment are international. Uh, and we get, um, we only have about, uh, 400 places a year for international students, for our master's students, and we get about 25,000 applications. So we're very much a university of, um, Selection rather than recruitment. You know, in the international student world, you either have a lot more applications than you could take, you're a university of selection or you're working to get as many qualified students as possible. Um The quality of the students is amazing, and I just wanted to say that the experience international students have in the, in the kingdom is absolutely superb. Uh, the, the country is so welcoming, it's so rich, it's so diverse, uh, and, um, I've never had as positive feedback from an international student group as I have with the students at. Uh, I know that the quality of the universities in the kingdom is increasing quite dramatically. Uh, differentiated sector, but they're going to be, uh, 7 or 8 universities here, which are in the top few 100 in the world very rapidly, some are already, and the opportunities for more international students to come to the kingdom will be enormous, and I, I guarantee any students who come here, you will have a great time and a great education. Thank you so much, Sir Edward. Absolutely. I think Saudi Arabia is the future with the education really bettering itself when we see that changes on the ground at the moment. Doctor Lina, I would like to turn to you, please. Now, traditionally, Saudi Arabia has sent its brightest students abroad. I don't want to contradict what you just said, Doctor, so please. Saudi Arabia has sent its brightest students to students abroad traditionally we're talking about in the past, but there are new initiatives to make the kingdom itself a magnet for international students and researchers. I think you can follow up on what Sir Edward said. Yeah, exactly. This is going to be a follow up to to what Sir Edward just mentioned about international students coming to the Saudi Arabia. Uh, we're looking at Saudi Arabia as an international educational hub basically. And we have just uh launched the new platform that we have which is study in Saudi with the new educational visa. Uh, this year we have received more than 200,000 applications, uh, who, who wants to study in, in Saudi. We have uh different universities participating within that platform. And uh uh as, as, as uh what uh Edoard mentioned the experience here is different, especially with international students, and we don't want them just to come here and study, want them even, even to be able to work to participate in, in, you know, different. Research Center and so on. So, uh, the main idea of study in Saudi and all these related initiatives is to have more international students coming to study in Saudi, uh, and they even private or even international universities that are opening soon in the kingdom. Uh, so we're looking at international students as, uh, uh, you know, uh, they can come not only to study, to create knowledge, to innovate, even to create future together. So it's a holistic approach when coming to study in the kingdom. Not only will you receive a great education, but also, also a cultural experience. Yes, exactly, and we call this is a study plus, OK, so we don't want the students just to come here and study with them. We want them even to, to, to work here in this in Saudi to participate in in different initiatives and within the innovation centers and these kind of things. Uh, Mr. Beer, I'd like to turn my attention to you and ask you more about Malverne. Of course, uh, it will be opening in 2027 and Riyadh exciting news. What does that decision say about how Saudi Arabia is positioning itself in the new global educational landscape? Thank you. I mean it was terrifically exciting to announce the launch of Modern College Riyadh a couple of months ago, and it really talks to the dynamism that we're seeing in Saudi Arabia, the sense of movement, progress, and it's both actually already within the kingdom, but also the number of businesses and companies and workforces that are moving here. So we see really high quality premium education as vital both to help develop those that are already in the kingdom, but also to be attractive for companies that are bringing their staff into into the country, and that's something obviously that we want to want to provide. But one of the biggest areas for us as well is the culture of innovation that we're seeing here. So you might think, so Melbourne College is actually 160 years old. You might think that a heritage organization like that is rather old fashioned and stuck in its ways, but we're very much not. We have our school sort of motto is Wise is the one that looks ahead. And we have a real heritage of innovation. There's actually 4 Nobel Prize winners that have come out of the college, and it's been quite interesting today because there's been a lot of talk about AI. Well, one of the original members of the what was known as the Dartmouth Workshop back in 1956, who were the original sort of birthplace of AI was an old Malvernian, which we're very, very proud of in the current environment. So that culture of innovation for us is very, very important and what we're looking forward to here and it goes back a little bit to what I was talking about employability. is that we can give students the absolute fundamentals of an excellent education through the International Baccalaureate, the foundations of regular subjects, but actually we can build on that with digital skills, with AI skills, and with looking at new ways of engaging our pupils. So for example, through gaming, which is obviously very, very popular in the kingdom, and how we can use that as a learning tool and a way to drive pupil engagement in our schools. So there's a real match for us about making the best of a strong heritage in education, but also bringing together the innovation that's there. And the last thing I do want to say on that as well is that we think there's a real cultural element in there that we're looking forward to. So it's about combining what the British side of the education that Bolton College brings, but melding that with the culture in Saudi Arabia, so making sure that Arabic is right up there on our curriculums, but also how we do our performing arts, music, theater, and bringing in the wider Saudi culture. Thank you so much, Mr. Weir. Sir Edwards, I'd like to turn my attention to you and ask you about the era of geopolitical shifts. How can universities act as bridges of collaboration, particularly between East and West, to advance scientific and educational progress, and if you can share a success story also. I think this is one of the most important things universities do in today's world. An international student movement is a huge part of that because when international students come and work in a country, you know, some of them stay and make their careers there, but the great majority go home and they're then soft ambassadors, soft cultural ambassadors for the country they've been to. That's been hugely helpful to the UK, but also to Australia, you know, another country where I, I worked for many, many years, which, uh, was probably the first of the Western countries to establish major links with much of Asia, especially Southeast Asia. Um. Now, this means that universities must have a global mindset. We have to educate our young people as global citizens, as part of the skill set you mentioned, you know, tolerance of ambiguity. People come from different backgrounds, learning to listen to people whose points of view are different to your own, helping you grow, and acquiring this broad experience at the same time as the skill set that makes you job ready. So, and I think we're getting quite good at doing that, but the opportunities that come from modern technologies like the advances in AI, you know, give us a huge increase in bandwidth in achieving these things. I do want to ask a follow up question on this because I feel during my time we were trying to be a global, global student, but now students truly are global. So wherever they go they already have, you know, information about that universe that country. They go in understanding more about that. People tell me about your experiences from that area. I think. This is probably more advanced in countries like Australia and to some extent the UK than the US as much of the US system is quite homogenous and international students in large numbers have only started to come in fairly recent years. But many UK and Australian universities have had 30 to 40% international students from almost 100 countries, you know, for 25, 30 years. And this has given an incredible mindset to the young people who go there. Kings, the last university in London I was the president of, had over 100 student societies from different countries, including the Saudi society that had about 300 young Saudis in it, and I used to meet the students and it was incredibly invigorating to see how they respect each other's viewpoints, you know, young people are Almost without exception, they're open minded. They're open to the world. uh, they learn from people from other countries and they love it. Uh, and I think that will happen more and more in Saudi Arabia as more international students start to come to the great universities here. Um, you know, I see, uh, and I, I don't work for the ministry here, so I might be going. But I see as in Singapore when Singapore was starting to move forward educationally, the sending of large numbers of young Saudis overseas, which has been going on for many years now, was a sort of stepping stone as the those young people came back and populated universities and other entities in the kingdom. But also as the standard of education and universities in the kingdom itself continues to rise, so there will be a time not so long from now, when not so many Saudis would go overseas because the quality of the university system here will be so strong and Example, as to how that can be done now is a, you know, small, large research institute in some ways, uh, but, um, you know, they're going to be some very significant Saudi universities in the top 100 in the not too distant future and, and better. Thank you so much, Sir Edward. Thank you all to our amazing speakers for this lovely uh panel today. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and learned as well. So the children are truly our future. They're bright, they're understanding, and they're open to the global audience. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for being part of this.