well equipped, but its reputation at a scientific level is affected by the fact that
it admits students of lower standards of learning as well as drop-outs from
other universities. The private section of the Marine Academy of Alexandria,
in contrast, enjoys an excellent reputation. Further private universities, which
are partly still lacking fully fledged programmes, are the University of Al-Ashir
min Ramadan in the satellite town of the same name, the Misr University
of Science and Technology at Sitta October, the Modern Academy at Maadi,
Sadat’s Academy at Madinet es-Sadat, and a German University in Cairo which
is in the planning stage. The recent establishment of several open universities is
an attempt to introduce fees in the public higher education sector, too. Here the
facilities of existing state universities are being used, but less strict admittance
regulations applied. Courses are offered for about US$60 per subject/term. The
numerous private higher institutes, which have appeared also in the provincial
cities, teaching mostly computer science, tourism and in some cases also social
sciences, still have to be evaluated. In 2000/01 there existed thirty-four facul-
ties in private universities in Egypt, in which a total of 17,311 students were
enrolled, of whom about 5,800 had been newly admitted in that academic year
(Ministry of Information 2002a). One of the reasons for the establishment of
the numerous new higher institutes for paying students is the acute lack of
employment opportunities for secondary school graduates. However, since the
employment chances of university graduates are also very low given the state
of the Egyptian economy at the beginning of the third millennium, young
people are actually postponing confronting the problem.