Article 7 of the Saudi Law of Universities

This article sets out the competences of the Council of University Affairs, subject to the other competences assigned to it in the Law. They can be grouped as follows:

• Policies and regulations: approving policies and strategies for university education; the regulations governing private universities and colleges and branches of foreign universities, and supervising them; the financial, administrative and academic regulations; the regulations on investment and self-generated revenue, donations, gifts and bequests, and endowments in coordination with the General Authority for Endowments; and scientific societies, research chairs and innovation centers, science museums, and student funds.
• Governance and evaluation: governance of universities and evaluation of their academic, administrative and financial performance, approving the rules for nominating university presidents, and approving the annual report and submitting it to the Council of Ministers.
• Establishment and structure: recommending the establishment, abolition or merger of universities and their branches, private colleges and branches of foreign universities, and submitting this to the Council of Ministers, and approving the establishment, merger or abolition of colleges, deanships, institutes, centers and departments, or changing their names.
• Remuneration and salaries: setting the remuneration and benefits of the board of trustees, the university council, vice presidents, deans and their deputies, heads of departments, members of the scientific councils and the secretary general of the Council, and the salary of the university president and his benefits.
• Financial consideration: determining the programs and courses for which a university may set a fee, and the general rules for that fee.
• Supervision and adjudication: supervising the performance of the boards of trustees and verifying the soundness of their decisions, and resolving conflicts of jurisdiction between the board of trustees and the university council.
• Other: recommending scientific and technical cooperation agreements with foreign institutions, and studying matters referred by its chair or proposed by its members.

The Council may delegate some of its powers to any of the boards of trustees under rules it approves, and form permanent or temporary committees from its members or others.

Article 6 sets out the composition of this Council under the chairmanship of the Minister of Education, and Article 8 regulates its meetings at least once every four months with a quorum of two thirds of the members.