The hundreds of private colleges and universities that have mushroomed across Malaysia in the past decade expect to profit nicely from the global economic downturn, The Star reported today.

The newspaper says the financial crisis will mean that fewer Malaysians will be able to afford to study abroad. The only way for many to earn a foreign degree will be to enroll in the so-called twinning programs now offered by private universities in Malaysia, or to attend branch campuses recently opened by foreign institutions. (For instance, Australia’s Monash University’s Sunway campus is reporting higher-than-normal application rates.)

Private institutions also hope that the economic woes will make Malaysia more attractive to African and Asian students seeking an affordable education in an English-speaking country. Although the country’s public and private higher-education system has a less-than-stellar academic reputation, tuition and housing in Malaysia make it a bargain compared with the United States and Britain.

More than 60,000 foreign students are studying in Malaysia, many of them from Bangladesh and Botswana. The government had hoped to attract 100,000 international students by 2010. But reports of racially motivated attacks and several suicides have hurt Malaysia’s efforts to become an international education hub. —Martha Ann Overland