This week we’re taking a look at higher education in the Middle East. For decades, college-bound young people in Syria had two choices: They could either go to one of the country’s eight, government-controlled universities or they could leave the country. That changed when Syria’s current President Bashar Al Asad succeeded his father in 2000. Asad introduced a number of reforms to the rigid socialist state, including the establishment of the country’s first private university. Today, more than 400,000 students attend college in Syria. A small percentage of them are enrolled in one of the countries eight private, for-profit schools. 

Sami Moubayed is a professor of international relations at the University of Kalamoon in Syria, the country’s first private institution. He says that in order to understand how private schools are changing the educational landscape, you have to know the history of state-run schools.