Trend of Saudi Arabia students taking higher education abroad

In this study our prime objective was to investigate the trend of Saudi Arabia students who are studying abroad for higher education. We find student enrolment is growing almost exponentially over the years. The most popular programs are Engineering and Medical Science and the least popular programs are Agriculture and Fine Arts. We also find an evidence of gender discrimination against women among the Saudi Arabia students studying abroad. In quest of which factors influence the number of students studying abroad we consider regression analysis and find that budget in higher education and oil price are the most important variables to explain students’ enrolment. Both regression and cross validation study reveal that the robust reweighted least squares (RLS) fit the data better than other models and yield better forecasts.