Fertile Ground: The Future of Higher Education in the Arab World

In some respects, on the morrow of the Arab Spring of 2011, the future of higher education in the Arab world could not be brighter—though perhaps only because the present is so dim. Decades of authoritarian rule, with its debilitating limitations on academic freedom, underinvestment in public institutions, and populist open enrollment policies all contributed to weakening the quality of the research universities in the region. The more recent appearance of investment in vanity projects--including branch campuses of US universities--on the part of both governments and private investors, is further complicating the economics of higher education in the region, creating perverse patterns in faculty salaries and student tuitions without producing substantial research or education of any quality. That said, the appearance of even moderately more open, accountable, and transparent regimes will provide significant opportunities for innovation in the Arab world.