●The Kennedy-Lugar YES exchange programme for school students

Since 2003 the "YES" programme, funded by the US State Department and launched after 11 September to improve the United States' image in Muslim societies, has sent Lebanese students aged fifteen to seventeen to spend a full school year with American families, run by Amideast and the embassy's public affairs office; their number has passed 600 students. Alongside it are the embassy's university programmes such as "Student Leaders" and "SUSI".

Note: These programmes are run in coordination with the ministry of education and thousands of students have benefited from them. But tying aid publicly to a political aim (Feltman's 2010 testimony: "reducing Hezbollah's appeal among the youth") turns education into an arena of influence, and reveals that a state unable to fund its public school and university gives up part of its educational sovereignty to whoever pays. These programmes openly declare the aim of preparing "future leaders" according to the donor's values, that is, building a political, economic and media elite that owes its formation, networks and career paths to a foreign state. Critics hold that over time this produces elites closer to the donor's priorities than to those of the Lebanese state, and have linked these networks to some figures of the "You Stink" movement of 2015 and the uprising of 17 October 2019.