To draw this amount of foreign universities and institutions certainly seems like an ambitious objective for the United Arab Emirates. For any other industrialized nation, this may seem like a close to impossible feat – especially in a nation with under 83,000 square kilometers of land area and a population of just under 5 million. The GDP of the minuscule United Arab Emirates is, however, over $175 billion. They have a significant amount of capital to "play around with." They look to everything as a major investment. Oil is certainly no longer an investment whatsoever, so the thriving industries of tourism, international business expansion and education have major priorities in the Arab state.
To attract foreign students as well as foreign universities themselves, Dubai has a series of incentives that are very difficult to compete with (sorry Australia) let alone pass up. The educational free zones offer many advantages which lure universities to set-up campus there, including 100% foreign ownership, 100% tax free status and effortless visa issuance procedures. In turn, these world-renowned colleges and universities present considerable benefits for both undergraduate and postgraduate students who wish to study in Dubai.
It is seemingly unreal to potential investors, interested students and desperate universities seeking rapid international expansion. Dubai's closest competitors in the educational field, namely the Australian Board of Higher Education and other European international universities, face no other options than to cut costs, offer similar incentives or simply stick to traditional campaigns and recruiting measures and suffer tremendous drops in application and attendance rates.
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