America's academic brain drain has begun

As the Trump administration targets universities and teachers, educators are eying greener academic pastures overseas — and other nations are taking notice

Columbia University students and faculty gather at Amsterdam Avenue and West 116th Street to protest the university's concessions to President Donald Trump in Manhattan, New York CIty, on Monday, March 24, 2025
American academia is struggling to maintain its global edge as Donald Trump sets his sights on some of the country's premier higher-learning institutes
(Image credit: Barry Williams / New York Daily News / Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

The United States hosts many of the best educational and academic institutions on Earth, and this has been instrumental in securing the country's status as a 21st century global superpower. These schools draw students, teachers and researchers from around the world to help perpetuate the very academic superiority that appealed to them in the first place.

Now, as the White House places various universities and research institutions in its ideological crosshairs, the nation's reputation for academic excellence is in jeopardy. Prospective students and job-seekers must contend with limited funds, the risk of deportation or worse. Suddenly, the United States' global educational appeal seems conspicuously less appealing. Meanwhile, other nations are noting the change, with some making plans to capitalize on America's waning collegiate pull.

'Fire sale on American academics'

"We are witnessing a new brain drain," said Aix Marseille University President Eric Berton in early March, after announcing a new "safe space for science" initiative to help American researchers continue their work at his school in France. So far the project has attracted more than 50 American researchers who have applied to bring their expertise overseas, a university spokesperson said. Universities worldwide have "reported seeing an uptick in applications from U.S.-based researchers" wary of the "increasingly uncertain climate" of the Trump administration, Science.org said. Many institutions see an opportunity to "attract new talent and reverse the steady migration of scientists to the U.S. in recent decades."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"There's a fire sale on American academics right now," University of Washington biology professor Carl Bergstrom said at health and biomedical focused publication STAT. Anxiety over the Trump administration's moves is "so deep" that it could ultimately "undermine the country's enduring position as the world leader in biomedicine," said STAT. The legally dubious detention of lawful U.S. resident students like Columbia University PhD candidate Mahmoud Khalil is "sure to have a chilling effect" not only on foreign-born academics already studying at American institutions but "on the desire of others to go there in the future," The Guardian said.

Concern from members of the academic community is not limited to individual domestic employment prospects but includes the "long-term viability of their research" itself, The New York Times said. The prospect of losing a "generation" of both science and scientists is "something that we cannot recover from," said Pasteur Institute president Yasmine Belkaid, a recently relocated former NIH official, to the Times. The Trump administration's moves "call into question whole swaths of research" — not simply in America, but globally, thanks to international partnerships, French Education minister Philippe Baptiste said in the same article.

'Once-in-a-century brain gain opportunity'

A number of countries are considering the situation in the United States an opportunity for their own academic and research institutions. Canadian universities can be an "entry way for a flood of talent" fleeing American academia, The Hill Times said. China too has begun welcoming "Ph.D. refugees from the U.S." by offering "new academic pathways," Hong Kong's South China Morning Post said. And America's academic upheaval is a "once-in-a-century brain gain opportunity" for Australia as well, said Danielle Cave, senior analyst for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

"Historically" brain drain migration has benefitted the U.S., said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of the history of education at the University of Pennsylvania, to the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. There is now a "real danger" that, as a result of the Trump administration's policies, the "drain is going to start going in the opposite direction."

Explore More
Rafi Schwartz, The Week US

Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.