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Comment by jryio | Hacker News Reader

A 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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight

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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

If you "drain" something the subject of the verb is what is being drained not where it is draining to.

Brain drain is a noun. In the context of American research universities, it’s historically been used one way because that was the direction of the drain.

Monopolizing talent is a zero sum game. If your tally is in the negative, you're experiencing brain drain.

No. They have it right. Brain drain, by definition, is emigration of educated and skilled labor out of country or region in search of greener pastures.

America losing foreigners in education institutions is not 'brain drain' in the classical sense. There is no emigration (the drain) involved. America receiving all those students and skilled labor over the years was brain drain.

It’s brain drain from other countries, especially China. The pipeline was simple: go to a mid tier Chinese university for undergraduate studies, get a masters or PhD from an American university, be advantaged in H1B due to this graduate degree, get a green card and settle permanently. That’s the brain drain. This pipeline has slowed down massively.

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 am also saying the same thing. They are commenting that the flight of human capital was coming from abroad and is no longer.

However that's not what brain drain means. You would say "Iran had a brain drain in the 70s" not "America was brain draining Iran" makes no sense.

I would say there was a brain drain from Iran to the US but I've also heard it used as a transitive verb. I think if there is a clear place talent is moving it's useful to specify it (and fwiw it doesn't sound weird to my ear).

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.

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