I’ve not seen any evidence the Saudis paid for Columbia. All indications are he was on some kind of CIA scholarship that involved a full year+ in the Af-Pak region helping Prof Brzezinski and Robert Gates set up Al-Qaeda.
It is said that Obama met al-Mansour while at Columbia. There is not much information about al-Mansour’s financing of Obama’s short stay at Columbia. However, there is strong indication that al-Mansour was instrumental in getting Obama into Harvard. I think that Frank Marshal Davis may have financed Obama in Columbia.
The stuff that al-Mansour has been involved in is as radical, anti American, as it gets. For Obama to be associated with him paints a good picture of Obama.