Israel’s challenge: educating the brain, avoiding the drain

Israeli students are on the “wanted list” for many American universities, because of their skills, knowledge, drive, and maturity. Next week, an American group that helps US universities recruit students abroad will be in Israel, running a “college fair,” introducing programs from some two dozen American universities to potential Israeli students.

It’s the kind of program that has some Israelis – among them veteran policymakers like Professor Manuel Trajtenberg – very concerned, because of “brain drain,” where Israel’s best and brightest leave home for better-paying pastures, never looking back. Others, however, aren’t as worried.

For various reasons – from the need to fill seats to providing students with a diverse cultural experience – recruiting Israeli students has become a popular trend at American schools, mostly for their graduate and post-graduate programs.

Many of the schools do the recruiting work in the context of a program called Education USA, which organizes road trips and other activities in countries around the world, for universities to meet potential students, and for students to learn about programs in the US. Education USA has a global network of more than 400 advising centers around the world, including one in Israel, supported by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State. The programs offered by the organization provide opportunities for study in a wide range of subjects, with institutions even offering scholarship money for the best and brightest.

Among the universities on this year’s Education USA recruiting trip is Washington D.C.-based George Washington University, represented by Chris Storer. This is the first time George Washington will be on an Education USA recruiting trip, and it’s all Storer’s doing, he told the Times of Israel. “It was a no-brainer. The Israeli students tend to be much more mature and disciplined because of their military training, giving them the professionalism we are looking for.”

Like most of the schools at the Education USA Fair in Tel Aviv, George Washington will be recruiting for the university’s MBA program – a favorite of Israeli students traveling abroad, according to Aharona Maskil, the Education USA representative in Israel. “The MBA program is our flagship program,” said Storer, Executive Director of MBA Admissions at George Washington.

Scholarships are available, he said, and students who join are promised a unique experience that will prepare them to do business almost anywhere, and with almost anyone. “In order to graduate, students need to conduct international consulting programs abroad, so there is a unique international flavor to our program. Students have to collaborate with clients abroad, and then work on the ground with them, in places like Rwanda, India, and Istanbul – three of the locations the projects were held in the past year. It’s a unique cultural and business experience.”

With the BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction) movement against Israel so strong on college campuses, you would expect to see groups protesting the recruitment of Israeli students – but that is not the case at all, said Storer. “I have worked with at least four universities, two of them in Boston, with over 20,000 students, so I have been around. Personally I have never seen any agitation against the recruitment of Israeli students. The students are usually welcome as part of the student body, and the administration is glad to have them to build cultural diversity on campus.

“That is an important part of the mission of universities today,” Storer added. “There are many cultural tensions in American society, and the large universities want to build tolerance and encourage students to get to know about other cultures, engaging foreign students in dialogue.”

Education USA may be a great idea for American institutions, but some Israelis have their misgivings – including Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, chairman of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Israeli Council for Higher Education. Speaking at a conference sponsored by business newspaper Globes and investment firm Dun and Bradstreet in Tel Aviv this week, Trajtenberg said, “If we are guilty of one sin, it is that we have allowed the ‘Jewish brain,’ our national resource, to get away. A quarter of all scientists trained in Israel emigrate and stay abroad, working at foreign universities,” Trajtenberg said. “That’s the world’s highest rate, double that of second place Canada.”

Dr. Shmulik Hess, chairman of BioAbroad, an Israeli that seeks to encourage Israeli scientists abroad to return home, agrees. “Many scientists who go abroad don’t come back, at least in my field of biotechnology. The salaries there are much better.” It’s a shame, too, he said, because Israel has some great institutions of higher learning. The solution, Hess said, was in the hands of the government. “Let’s face it, there is a global war for the best brains today, and Israel is part of this war. In some areas, the government is putting up a fight, providing incentives and benefits to bring professionals back home, but more needs to be done.”

In 2010, the Knesset voted into law a program aimed at bringing back to Israel 2,000 high profile scientists and researchers working at American academic institutions, establishing “excellence centers” where they can work and do research. The first 11 programs were established at the beginning of 2013 by a new government organization, I-CORE (Israeli Centers for Research Excellence). Currently, however, there is no Israeli government program to encourage entrepreneurs, information technology workers, and top professionals at non-academic institutions to return home.

But Storer, who has had some 15 years experience recruiting Israeli students for US institutions, thinks that the problem isn’t as bad as many in Israel believe. “Many foreign students who come to the USA on masters and doctoral program stay for a few years, but most go back home at a certain point, and that includes Israeli students.” Even for those who try to stay, tough US government immigration and visa policies eventually convince them to return to Israel. “In the end, it’s an issue between governments,” said Storer. “There is a lot of fluidity today. Students come, stay for awhile, and go home, and they are richer for the experience.”