Young people in the Middle East now have more options for high quality university education than were available 10 years ago. This, however, has come with steeply rising tuition fees that often strain the budgets of families eager to secure a  better future for their children.

In September 2012, students at the American University in Cairo (AUC) for the second year staged several protests in their campus to protest the annual 7-9% increase in fees. AUC is already one of the most expensive universities in Egypt, with tuition fees often surpassing LE120,000 (US$1,200) per year. The students demanded a cap to the increase which many said became unaffordable for them or their families. The protests closed the university for 10 days until a deal was brokered between the administration and the students.

“I want a good education, but the bulk of families in Egypt cannot afford the fees they collect every year. My family can hardly make ends meet because of this even though I have a scholarship. Without that I would not have been able to continue,” says a student at AUC who preferred to remain anonymous. AUC has announced this year that 15% of its tuition income this year went to provide around 60% of the students with some form of scholarship or financial aid.

AUC was not the only university in Egypt to have protests against rising tuition fees. Students in the Modern Science and Arts University also staged protests, boycotting lectures and classes.

Students in universities in the United Arab Emirates, who have also been complaining of rising tuition fees, have been luckier than their Egyptian counterparts. Due to the number of complaints received, the Abu Dhabi University (ADU) has frozen its tuition fees for this year, according to Gulf News. The American University of Sharjah (AUS) has also decided not to increase tuition fees while increasing its financial aid programme, according to AME Info. According to Ali Shuhaimy, AUS Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management, undergraduate students pay around 80,000 AED annually (~US$21,780) which “is in line with most international universities of our standing, both in Europe and the US,” he adds.

Hajar Al Safty, a senior student at the AUS, however, tells Gulf News that without the financial aid she receives she would never be able to make it. “I wouldn’t be able to continue in the UAE, if I wasn’t granted financial aid. It would have been very hard because it is extremely expensive.”

“I guess I can accept that good education should be costly, that’s the same everywhere. The problem is that when the fees are so expensive it becomes selective, only available to richer people who can afford this, rather than those who are really good,” adds the AUC student.