Edu-City: Another Hare-Brained Idea?

Just a week ago, the New Straits Times reported a story on the efforts of United Engineers Malaysia (UEM) to "sell" Bandar Nusajaya in Johor to "leading foreign universities to build branch campuses."

The project known as Edu-City will be an integral component of the new Nusajaya township where Johor's new administrative capital is being built.

"There is a great deal of interest from leading American, Australian and UK-based universities in Nusajaya. We should be able to announce the details by the middle of next year."

It was stated that different institutions will set up different campuses specialising in different fields.

Can this idea actually take off? Why will these "leading" American, Australian and UK universities want to set up specialised campuses in Nusajaya (which at this point of time, is still sparsely populated)?

The property division of UEM has in the most recent quarter registered a pre-tax loss of RM2.6 million. Is there going to be further losses to come with the launch of the "Edu-city" project? Thankfully this is a private sector project and the tax payer's monies are not utilised to fund it.