The Economist yesterday opened the second in their series of education debates. The proposition this time around is about universities competing for students:

Governments and universities everywhere should compete to attract qualified students, regardless of nationality or residence.

Early voting is strongly in favour of the proposition by about 2 to 1.

The pro-side mostly argues that international students pay more than other students resulting in a financial windfall for the institution, and the mixing of cultures is beneficial to international and local students.

The con-side mostly worries that the students will stay and steal high-paying jobs from locals, or take their skills back home and use them to out-compete locals, or that the focus should be on educating their constituents.

I would argue that there is a very real economic benefit for all parties when knowledge is shared.

The work on Ask Olli is an example of the benefits of sharing knowledge. The programmer who did most of the work is Polish. Programmers are in high demand and command a healthy salary, and this programmer was no different.

Should I be resentful because he put in the effort to learn a difficult and in-demand skill. No. Actually, I should be greatful because, as expensive as the programming was, the programming would have been even more expensive, beyond my reach, if countries like Canada, the US, and Britain drove away away foreign students. Without foreign students staying and taking these jobs, the demand for programmers would far outstrip the supply.

What about people taking those skills abroad? I could have very easily hired a group of India-based programmers to save some money. As it was, I was able to work with someone locally, but cheaper, foreign-based programmers make the skills more accessible to people like myself.

The point is that everyone benefits from the spread of knowledge because it makes that knowledge more accessible to everyone. Without foreign-born engineers, scientists doctors, and programmers, domestic and world economies would not function.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Education, Miscellany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.