Can Educational Migration Save the World?
Allowing more people from poorer countries to study in wealthier ones would provide benefits all around.
Open campus.
Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg
In the never-ending quest to make the world a better place, a new idea is beginning to draw more attention: educational migration. If you want to assist someone in a poor country, why not spend extra money and help them get a good college education in the West?
Part of the appeal of educational migration is that it combines the gains from two beneficial ideas. It is not unusual, for instance, for a migrant from Africa, moving to a wealthier country, to earn 20 times the income. That higher productivity also represents goods and services produced for the consumers of the receiving country. And of course some number of those migrants may go on to win Nobel Prizes or make other notable achievements.