In the past, only upper class Saudis were educated abroad. The king's scholarship program, by contrast, reaches out to promising young people in all levels of society, says Ahmed al Omran, a Saudi journalist who earned a master's from Columbia University.
At the graduation ceremony in Washington in May, Saudi degree recipients ranged from second-generation U.S. graduates, to the first in their families to read and write.
To be eligible for the program, students must have top grades and generally study in a field targeted by the government—such as business, engineering or medicine. Females are required to be accompanied by a close male relative. The government urges students to avoid political activity and media attention, students say.
In the U.S., closer Saudi ties still generate controversy. While public criticism of Saudi Arabia has generally been muted since 2005, some U.S. critics still focus on what they say are inadequately addressed questions about a possible Saudi government role in the Sept. 11 attacks. Others say the U.S. should have less to do with an ally accused by rights groups of mistreatment of religious minorities, dissidents and others.
U.S. officials have arrested one Saudi college student on terrorism-related charges since the 2001 plots. Last month, Khalid Al Dawsari, a student on private scholarship to Texas Tech University in 2008, was convicted in federal court in Texas on charges alleging he plotted to bomb Mr. Bush's Dallas home and other targets. He wasn't part of King Abdullah's current government scholarship program.
After Mr. Al Dawsari's arrest last year, Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, called for closer monitoring of Saudi students. "We have to be much, much stricter, much more realistic…when they come from countries such as Saudi Arabia," Mr. King told Fox News. Mr. King's office didn't respond to requests for comment.
Some of Saudi Arabia's harsher critics have supported the scholarship program. "If anybody is going to modernize [Saudi] society, it's going to be people" with exposure to the West, said Elliott Abrams, a conservative policy analyst who served in two Republican administrations. "In that sense I'm all in favor of it."
The long-term impact on Saudi society of so many students being educated abroad remains to be seen. At a coffee shop in the hotel where the graduation ceremony was held in Washington, the recent graduates spoke of eagerness to get back to Saudi Arabia as well as a wistfulness at leaving the U.S.
"The best four years I ever had," graduate Dana Al Mojil said of her study at Portland State University. Ms. Al Mojil was rueful about turning over the keys to her Pontiac to her younger sister and other relatives, who are still studying here. In Saudi Arabia, women aren't permitted to drive.
She will also miss the independence and responsibility she discovered in America. "I pay bills myself. I shop myself," Ms. Al Mojil said. "In Saudi, you don't do that."
Munir Zaimy, a 26-year-old with a new master's degree from Southern Methodist University, said he would return home with new ideas about education, business and other fields. When "we go back, we want things to be better," he said. "Not American, not Saudi—better."
Back in Riyadh, many students who have returned express satisfaction at settling back in with families and jobs and repaying their country with hard work. For others, especially some women, a foreign education is more complicated.
Deema al Mashabi, 24, is weighing whether to accept an offer of a king's scholarship for a master's degree in the U.S. Her mother has asked her to refuse. "She feels that I would like it so much if I do go abroad…that I would never come back," Ms. Al Mashabi says.
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