Brain Drain
Like brain gain, brain drain also has conflicting policy implications. While the loss of a nation's leading students can result in a knowledge vacuum, encouraging students to study abroad—and later to return—can be a near-term economically favorable alternative to building domestic educational capacity. The bar graph (upper) shows the percentage of foreign doctoral students—by country—who plan to stay in the U.S* post-graduation. Then, looking at some combined regions (lower), these charts reveal the number of foreign doctoral students who plan to stay in the U.S. (lower left). Being an absolute number, this is indicative of the volume of brain drain from each country (e.g., large countries would be expected to have the most brain drain). Showing these numbers as percentages (lower right) gives a negative indicator of student's perceptions of opportunities in their own country, because a higher percentage of students wishing to stay in the U.S. (or in any other non-native country) indicates a poor perception of their home country.
SOURCE: National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics. 2009. Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: Summary Report 2007–08. Special Report NSF 10-309. Arlington, VA.
