Toriqi who was the first Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources in the Kingdom was the first Saudi student on a scholarship to the USA in 1948, followed by the transfer of a mission of 30 Saudi students from Aramco students from the American University in Beirut to study at the University of Texas in 1949. Specialists in the field of education considered the 7th of August, 1956 as the official date for the opening of the first cultural office in the history of Saudi scholarship in the United States of America and called the Saudi Cultural Office in New York. This period has seen the numbers of Saudi students on scholarships to the United States of America had doubled to reach (800) in 1974 and the year hadn't passed until the number jumped, unprecedentedly, to be (2039) scholarship students. --More 14:47 LOCAL TIME 11:47 GMT تغريد
