Maha Sarakham
Isan's 'Taxila'—Mahasarakham University trains 40,000+ students including Thailand's only paleontology postgrads, enabling dinosaur discoveries across the region.
Maha Sarakham earned its nickname "Taxila of Isan"—after the ancient Hindu-Buddhist learning center—by becoming northeast Thailand's knowledge hub. Mahasarakham University now enrolls over 40,000 students across 177 programs, the only Thai institution offering postgraduate degrees in paleontology. This matters because Thailand's dinosaurs keep emerging from Isan soil.
At Phu Faek, within the province, excavations have uncovered fossils contributing to Thailand's 14+ dinosaur species count. In May 2025, university researchers helped identify a new sauropod nearly 20 meters long at neighboring Phu Wiang; their paleontologists presented a nearly-complete 7.5-meter spinosaurid specimen at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference in Birmingham. The 145-million-year-old tyrannosauroid teeth, the small runner Minimocursor phunoiensis—these discoveries pass through Maha Sarakham's research infrastructure like nutrients through a keystone species.
The university also offers Thailand's only BA in Khmer language, recognizing the Isan-Cambodia linguistic borderland. Its Faculty of Education won Thailand's best designation in 2010. But this is still rural Isan: monthly student expenses run $300-500, far below Bangkok, and community outreach programs connect faculty with local farmers improving agricultural practices. Maha Sarakham's economy runs on education's knowledge multiplier effect—the province exports graduates and research, importing tuition and federal funding.