US less inviting for Arab students

It certainly isn't the cushy job of assistant treasurer of the student union that is keeping Aly Nabil in Cairo this summer where temperatures have soared to 115 degrees.

But he would rather take the heat in Egypt than "face the music" in the United States where he had planned to study during a year abroad at UCLA or Penn State.

"I applied in February, but I reconsidered real quick," he says, relaxing in an air-conditioned student lounge at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

Even as increasing numbers of American students are applying to study in Egypt, reports of harassment and undue security checks are frightening some Arab students away from their dream of studying in the United States.

"Some of my friends in the States say they have been treated poorly since September," says Mr. Nabil. "I also read in the newspaper that over 20 Egyptians in their 20s are still being held in US detention centers. I think I will wait a couple of years for things to cool down before reapplying."

The trend has officials on both sides of the Atlantic worried about study abroad programs that are deemed crucial to forging Arab world ties as the US government expands its "war on terror" and the crisis in the Middle East deepens. Officials at the US Embassy in Cairo say they are doing everything they can to support the embattled programs.

Sohair Saad, director of the Amideast educational resource center in Cairo, says that some local presentations by US schools, which garnered 25 interested students a year ago, have only hosted three or four students this year. The number of students taking the all-important Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) has dropped by 40 percent in Egypt, she says.

Likewise, Tomader Rifaat, director of International Student Services at the AUC, says applications by Egyptian students to study abroad in the US have dropped by 40 percent since last September.

"In many cases, it is the parents, rather than the students, who are increasingly reluctant to send their children to study in the United States," says Ms. Rifaat. "For two schools that we usually send students to, we had no applications at all this year."

But a key official with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, (AAADC) Hussein Ibish, says that the fears of Arab students in the Middle East are exaggerated.

"From the outside, it might look like worse than it actually is," admits Mr. Ibish. "Most Arab students don't face any great danger or particularly onerous burden when studying here. In the main, the US is still a tolerant nation. While it would be false to tell people it is as simple as in August 2001 to study here, the new obstacles should not be interpreted as prohibitive."

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