"This year alone about 130,000 Saudi students are studying abroad, half of
them in the United States, said James B. Smith, the U.S. ambassador to
Riyadh. The stated goal of the program, which the Arab News daily in December
reported cost more than 20 billion riyals ($5.3 billion), is to prepare Saudi
nationals to replace expatriate workers in better-paid technical jobs in the
kingdom, reducing unemployment.
But a secondary ambition of making Saudi Arabia a more open society has always been more or less explicitly acknowledged by the authorities."
But a secondary ambition of making Saudi Arabia a more open society has always been more or less explicitly acknowledged by the authorities."
