Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved the establishment of Fulbright University Vietnam (FUV), the first non-profit foreign-invested university in the Southeast Asian country. Initiated by the U.S.-based Trust for University Innovation in Vietnam, FUV will be located in Ho Chi Minh City, focusing on the content provided in the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program (FETP) over the past two decades. The establishment of FUV was first mentioned in the joint statement during the visit to the White House by Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang in July 2013 and later reiterated by the U.S. State Secretary John Kerry in his visit to Hanoi in December 2013. Director of FETP Nguyen Xuan Thanh said that FUV will be designed as a general university including colleges training graduates and post-graduates in business administration, law, medicine, and public administration. The Fulbright Vietnamese Student Program, which offers the U.S. government’s scholarships to Vietnamese students, has attracted a large number of students in the communist country over the past years. It helps inspire the students to study and look for scholarships aboard. Offering education programs through scholarships and cooperation with Vietnam’s universities, the U.S. has drawn in a large amount of foreign currencies from the Southeast Asian country over the years. Currently, Vietnam has 16,000 students studying in the U.S., ranking 8th among countries having students over there. (Chinhphu.vn June 4, Tuoitre.vn June 5 p2)
