"Nobody could have anticipated the global meltdown, which has
certainly had a negative effect on our student marketing," zegt
Brendan Mullan, executive director van de vestiging van
Michigan State in Dubai. Het lukt hen en anderen niet
meer om voldoende studenten van niveau te werven en dat zet de
onderneming zwaar onder druk.
In Qatar zitten onder meer Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown,
Northwestern, Texas A&M en Virginia Commonwealth met
vergelijkbare bedreigingen voor hun voortbestaan. "We've had
close to 200 transfer applications, some from other universities in
the U.A.E., but others from India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and
Oman," aldus Mullan. "We are not compromising on quality, even if
that means it takes us longer to gain traction here. We actually
turned down 30 percent of our applicants last fall."
Michigan State wil er alles aan doen om niet kopje onder te
gaan, want men blijft geloven in het Arabische avontuur. "We still
believe this is viable and valuable. We're not just going to be a
teaching storefront here. We're going to have significant research
capacity and our commitment to Dubai is unyielding," zegt hij tegen
de NYTimes.