Strictures in U.S. Prompt Arabs to Study Elsewhere

Australia Is Viewed As 'More Welcoming'

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- For Nabil Al Yousuf, a senior aide to the ruler of the Persian Gulf state of Dubai, the indignities of arriving in the United States since 2001 have become routine, but remain galling.

A U.S. airport immigration official typically takes Yousuf's passport, places it in a yellow envelope and beckons. Yousuf tells his oldest son and other family members not to worry. And Yousuf -- who goes by "Your Excellency" at home -- disappears inside a shabby back room. He waits alongside the likes of "a man who had forged his visa and a woman who had drugs in her tummy," he recounted. He is questioned, fingerprinted and photographed.

So when it came time this year for the oldest son to choose a university, there was one choice that seemed right to Yousuf, a fond alumnus of universities in Arizona and Georgia.

Australia.

"Australia's more welcoming," said Yousuf, the director general of the Dubai government's executive office and the executive director of the Dubai School of Government. He spoke in his glass-walled corner office high over the thrusting metallic skyline of the port city of Dubai, one of seven emirates that form the United Arab Emirates.

"When I was there, the U.S. used to be a welcoming place. We never felt we were foreigners," Yousuf said, cupping prayer beads in one hand and displaying his University of Arizona mug, discolored with age, in the other. In the United States, "you just don't feel part of society anymore."

The Yousuf family is not alone. A generation of Arab men who once attended college in the United States, and returned home to become leaders in the Middle East, increasingly is sending the next generation to schools elsewhere. This year, Australia overtook the United States as the top choice of citizens of the United Arab Emirates heading abroad for college, according to government figures here.

Ten percent fewer students in the Emirates elected to go to the United States in 2006 than in 2005, according to the New York-based Institute of International Education.

In neighboring Oman, the drop was 25 percent. Jordan, Kuwait and Lebanon recorded single-digit falls, continuing a trend begun amid the crackdowns on visas and security that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The drop isn't across the board. Iran sent more students to both Australia and the United States. So did some Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, which is dispatching thousands more students abroad under a massive scholarship program.

In Australia, meanwhile, the number of Arab and Iranian students has climbed from 2,580 in 2002 to 7,122 in 2006, according to Australia's Education Department.

For Australia, the numbers are the product of campaigns aggressively seeking the post-9/11 Arab and Muslim market, from tourism to higher education. The campaigns appeal to Arabs who once might have picked Disneyland vacations for their families and U.S. universities for their teenagers, but worry now about affronts at U.S. airports and visa problems interrupting educations.