The impressive expansion of higher education opportunities in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Member states over the last two decades is well reflected in the systemic heterogeneity that currently characterizes higher education systems across the region. Higher education systems include a wide variety of public and private institutions, as well as a range of undergraduate and technical institutions, geared towards academic and vocational aspirations. Within this larger context, the trend towards privatization and Americanization of higher education systems in the GCC region has been most noticeable. Some analysts have pointed out that this expansion should be understood within the larger geopolitical reconfigurations that have taken place in the Gulf since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Within this broader context, the reconfiguration of the higher education landscapes in the GCC region play an important role in consolidating the emerging position of power of the Gulf states within the region and in relation to the Arab world more generally. Yet, the transformation of GCC higher education systems into regional hubs - both in relation to incoming students and to prospective faculty members who immigrate into the region - also means greater competitivity between and, in the case of the UAE, within GCC states. Underpinning the expansion of GCC higher education opportunities is the shift from a continental model of higher education governance, which largely replicated the structure of Egyptian public universities, to a variety of models of governance in which state and non-state actors have become increasingly involved in the development of higher education venues along different specializations. In the smaller Gulf states, this change is well reflected in a retreat of the state from founding public universities directly, shifting part of their policy efforts and funding resources to private and quasi-private entities and agencies. This policy approach has been most noticeable, for instance, in the Sultanate of Oman, Kuwait, and in the United Arab Emirates, where private and corporate enterprise in the field of higher education underpins much of the expansion in higher education opportunities. In these countries, the state assumes a more regulative posture, particularly regarding outreach universities, whether at the graduate or undergraduate level. In contrast, higher education expansion in Saudi Arabia follows a somewhat different path, with the state remaining deeply involved in the founding and operation of public higher education venues, such as universities, while regulating the emergence of different types of undergraduate colleges dubbed as 'community institutions'.