A good university education at a private institution costs in Malaysia between RM 25,000 and RM 35,000 per year. A regular institution is not an option, because places are only given to foreigners if no Malaysians come to attend. Basically, you can only do Islamic studies, for which there are far too many places and after which you are guaranteed to be unemployed or look for a job at your local McDonald's or Islamic Jihad office (just kidding).
COLLEGES
Well, seriously. There are several 'lectures' that provide 'twinning programs'. There is then a collaboration with foreign universities (especially the UK and Australia). This usually means studying in Malaysian college and completing the final year in the UK or Australia at university, which will eventually give you a degree. There are also 3 + 0 programs, where you study in Malaysia all the time. Although these colleges are cheap, they are actually leather factories, and they are still suitable for a 'foundation' (I will come back to that later).
Two good colleges, which are less of a "learning factory" and well regarded: are HELP (www.help.edu.my)
, Lim Kok Wing (www.limkokwing.edu.my)
and Cenfad, both for media & design. Also Ook Penang Medical College (www.pmc.edu.my)
seems to be good.
University of Nottingham
UNIVERSITIES
More reliable are the foreign universities, which have a campus in Malaysia. Two of these are in Kuala Lumpur: Monash University (www.monash.edu.my)
and the University of Nottingham, from Australia and UK respectively.
Monash University in particular is quite good and big. It is located in a nice, modern part of Kuala Lumpur. I know people who study there, they are very satisfied with it. I've been there few times. The atmosphere is good. I also know people who attended the University of Nottingham, who were not very satisfied with it. To me they seemed a bit arrogant about that. Then there is
Curtin University of Technology (www.curtin.edu.my) an Australian university in Miri, Sarawak. I don't know about that.
Curtin University in Miri (Sarawak)
Finally, there is a private university,
University Multimedia (www.mmu.edu.my) , which focuses entirely on electrical and information technology. I cannot say with certainty whether it is very good. In any case, the location is very worthless, because the university is located south of Kuala Lumpur in "the middle of nowhere".
ACCESSIBILITY
Malaysia is a very popular country to study with students from the Middle East, North Africa and Indonesia. These mainly come to Malaysia because of the relaxed Muslim climate and the relatively low cost. There are also many students from China and India.
Getting admitted to a university is usually not that difficult. They only like to put students first in a 'foundation program', a kind of 'prep year'. This is very useful if your knowledge of the English language is poor and you are not very good at everything, but a waste of time if you have everything well organized.
So be careful with this.
FINALLY
Yhe promo site of Education Malaysia is:
www.studymalaysia.com. This one is packed with information. But be warned, there are some super bad institutions in Malaysia, which mainly serve to provide visas for illegal immigrants (they pay school fees, get a visa and then go to work illegally in Malaysia).
Therefore, find out in advance where you are going, preferably pay a visit and ask people about it.
LAST NOTE If you are going to study in Malaysia, you are required to do Malay and moral studies. Both are very little, so don't worry.
