alt Hacker NewsA brain drain means the intelligent population emigrates to other countries.
The narrative and data do not support Americans going abroad.
I think you're referring to a lack of competitive education for those coming outside of America and choosing Europe / China to study.
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They are saying the opposite. People have been coming to America for higher education and staying here and that has historically benefited the US. And that seems to be changing.
I think they meant that in the past every other nation had a brain drain towards American research universities.
I took the previous comment to mean that the US has benefited from brain drain so far. If we turned off that benefit, that could handicap the US.
I mean, brain drains work TOWARDS the US as well, word meanings are not an American centric thing.
I think you’ve got it backwards. MIT used to be brain-draining China, India, Iran, Europe, etc into schools like MIT. The lower numbers mean this is happening less. There are likely multiple factors: becoming less attractive, their domestic options becoming more attractive, more aggressive immigration posture, etc