As the new routes of the brain drain are being determined, what should Turkey do?

A news item carried by Reuters a few days ago looks, at first glance, like a technical regulation concerning US immigration policy. But read carefully, it heralds a historic shift in mindset that puts at risk the most important capital that built America's global superiority.

What makes America America is not only its economic size, military power or technological superiority. In essence, the real dynamic behind even these is that for about a century it has been able to attract the brightest minds from all over the world. America's global superiority has been fed largely not by its natural resources but by its human resources. From scientists fleeing Europe to Asia's most successful engineers, from the Middle East's brilliant researchers to Africa's promising young people, millions of people did not merely receive an education in America; they also built America's power.

Walking through the corridors of the world's best universities, from Harvard to Stanford, from MIT to Berkeley, it is impossible not to feel that the world is a whole and that the US is its center. In the laboratories, researchers from dozens of different nations work together. In the same classroom there are students from dozens of different countries. This diversity is not only a cultural richness but also one of the most important sources of scientific creativity.

According to the latest regulation reported by Reuters, visa durations for foreign students, researchers under exchange programs and foreign journalists are being significantly restricted. International students' visas will now be valid for a maximum of four years; the period granted to stay in the country and find a job after graduation is being cut from 60 days to 30 days. Transfers between universities are being made harder, and even graduate students' changes of academic direction are being subjected to serious limitations.

The justification given for these regulations is the increase in the number of students and exchange program participants coming to the country. In 2024 the number of international students entering the US exceeded 1.8 million. In the same year more than half a million exchange program participants and more than 37 thousand foreign journalist visas were issued. Washington sees this as a burden that is hard to oversee.

Yet the very fact that these figures, which precisely express America's real strength, have begun to be read as a source of concern by the US administration does not bode well for America's future.

Because these people are not a burden on America's back but an investment in its future. Behind a significant part of the world's biggest technology companies, Nobel prizes, patents and scientific breakthroughs there are immigrants or international students. America's "brain import" model is perhaps the most successful development strategy ever devised in history.

For that reason these decisions may find a response in domestic politics in the short term; but in the long term they carry the risk of eroding America's global appeal. Scientists and students do not look only for a salary or a scholarship. They also look for trust, predictability, freedom and a perspective on the future. A system that can turn them at any moment into unwanted persons will become increasingly less attractive to the world's brightest young people.

It is precisely at this point that, by the nature of things, new opportunities are emerging for the world. In fact, in recent years Türkiye has been undergoing a quiet but important transformation in exactly this field. Today the number of international students studying at Turkish universities has reached 380 thousand. Young people from a very wide geography, from Africa to Central Asia, from the Balkans to the Middle East, are choosing Türkiye. Likewise the number of foreign academics is increasing every year. Thanks to Erasmus, Mevlana, bilateral agreements and joint research projects, Turkish universities are becoming increasingly visible actors in international academic circulation.

You can see the real value and consequences of this better once you go out into the field.

Especially when you travel in Syria, which is in the process of being rebuilt, in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sudan and many other countries, you can come across young people who were educated at Turkish universities everywhere. Some have become faculty members at universities, some work in state institutions, some are leaders of civil society organizations, some have become journalists, entrepreneurs or politicians. What they all have in common is that they see Türkiye not merely as a country where they studied but as their second homeland.

Could there be a more effective "soft power" than this?

Today education export is not merely a sector that earns foreign currency. It is also an export of culture, language, trust and influence. Every international student who is educated in Türkiye becomes, on returning to his or her country after graduation, a living bridge between Türkiye and his or her own society. Trade develops, diplomatic relations strengthen, academic cooperation increases, cultural interaction deepens. It is often not big weapon systems but the friendships formed on university benches that determine a country's future.

For this reason Türkiye has a historic opportunity before it.

America's growing inward turn, Europe's timidity on migration, and global academic mobility's search for new centers offer Türkiye an important possibility. However, to make use of this opportunity, merely increasing the number of students is not enough.

First of all, our universities need to be striving to have a sound university vision, philosophy and governance.

Second, we need to develop in a suitable way the environments that host and educate these students. For this, for instance, we need to give up treating the concept of the "foreign student" from a migration- and security-centered perspective. A significant portion of the young people who come to our universities will be the ministers, ambassadors, scientists, businesspeople and opinion leaders of the future. We must be able to look at them not as temporary guests but as Türkiye's long-term strategic partners.

Third, new processes friendly to international students and academics should be developed, from the Directorate of Migration Management to municipalities, from universities to city life. Residence procedures should be eased, bureaucratic obstacles reduced, mechanisms supporting social harmony established in cities, and problems relating to housing and working life resolved more quickly. The cities where our universities are located must be turned into living spaces where international students feel safe, valued and that they belong.

Türkiye today should not be merely a country that admits students. It should be a center of attraction that draws the world's brains to itself.

Because in the 21st century the real competition among countries is no longer waged only over capital or energy resources but over human capital. The countries that can attract the brightest minds will also shape the technology, economy and politics of the future.

America achieved this for many years and owes its global leadership largely to it. If today it is pursuing policies that will weaken this advantage, this is not only a loss for America; it is also a historic opportunity for rising countries like Türkiye.

Moreover, Türkiye, with its historical, scholarly, cultural and spiritual depth and its far wider geography of hearts, is better suited to establishing this relationship far more effectively.