Turns out that Kansas is more tolerant of ‘furiners’ when their pockets are stuffed with money.

Thousands of students from Saudi Arabia are enroling on college campuses across the United States this semester under a new educational exchange programme.

The programme will increase manifold the number of Saudi students and scholars by the academic year’s end. And big, public universities from Florida to the Kansas plains are in a fierce competition for their tuition dollars…

…Kansas State has boosted efforts to court Saudi officials in the last year, flying administrators and department heads to the Saudi embassy in Washington. It’s paid off: last month about 150 Saudi students started classes there, each funded to the tune of about $31,000…

…So, as Kansas State students enjoy a string of home football games this month, they also are preparing for the campus’ first celebration of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

“We really want to make this special. We’re going to truck in halal food from Kansas City.”

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“Sometimes people ask me if I ride a camel to campus. They don’t even realize how many cities we have in Saudi Arabia.”

Marwan al-Kadi, Saudi student