DOHA - In recent weeks, hundreds of students from around the world have arrived just outside Qatar’s capital of Doha, headed for a stretch of desert that hosts one of the largest clusters of American universities overseas.

Some have chosen to go to offshore branches of top US schools, including Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon and Georgetown. Others to a large local college. Those arrivals have helped propel enrolment at this small but emerging education hub – funded by the Arab world’s richest nation – to a record.