[doctorpangloss]

It seems pretty obvious, if everyone's trying to send their kids to get higher-educated here in the US, and they're pretty smart, maybe it's for a good reason?

I mean not everything is as reductionist as vanity or brain drain. That seems to be the totally uninspired analysis from other commenters. It may be that there are equally smart students everywhere, but actually you get the best education here, and why?

One answer is that less conformity, greater social and political freedoms, and greater economic resources all let students reach their potential better.

A nuanced view would look at what it means, really, to feel stifled at a university where you’re guaranteed to have been at the top of your class but still not know important near-history or enjoy free speech. Maybe conformity crops up in the quality of professors more so than the students. It’s really complex but I know maybe only a few Tsinghua grads and all of them continued their educations here.

So my perspective is limited by the fact that I’ve never interacted with very many people who are strictly foreign educated in 2019 born after 1990.

[AstralStorm]

I think the combination of best in the field being in academia, enough but not too much drive for results and a bit of nonconformity is the key. Also good funding not driving the best out of education system.

For instance, in Poland (and Russia too), education is grossly underfunded so the volume and drive are low, while South Korea has a bit too much conformity in their system, producing great engineers but not as great basic research.