The rate of brain drain among Turkish university graduates remained at 2 percent in 2024, with engineers and information technology graduates leading the exodus, local media reported, citing the latest data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
The “Higher Education Brain Drain Statistics, 2024” report revealed on Friday that emigration rates were highest among graduates in information and communication technologies (6.7 percent) and in engineering, manufacturing and construction (4.4 percent), followed by natural sciences, mathematics and statistics (2.7 percent).
Male graduates were more likely to emigrate, with a rate of 2.4 percent compared to 1.6 percent among women, while the overall figures remained similar to last year’s, indicating that the outflow of educated youth from Turkey shows no signs of slowing.
At the program level, graduates in molecular biology and genetics recorded the highest brain drain rate at 15 percent, followed by management engineering (10.8 percent) and electrical engineering (9.6 percent).
Private university graduates more likely to go abroad
While the rate of brain drain among public university graduates remained unchanged at 1.7 percent in 2024, graduates of private universities were more likely to pursue academic or professional careers abroad, with a rate of 4.3 percent. Among them, the highest rate was recorded among full-scholarship students at 8.3 percent, compared to 3.7 percent for partially funded students and 3.6 percent for those paying full tuition.
When analyzed by the language of instruction, French-language programs produced the highest emigration rate at 9.9 percent, ahead of English (6.2 percent), German (5.9 percent) and Russian (4.7 percent).
US and Germany top destinations for Turkish graduates
The United States was the most popular destination for Turkish graduates, accounting for 19.6 percent of total emigration, followed by Germany (19.4 percent), the United Kingdom (11.3 percent), the Netherlands (7 percent) and Canada (5.2 percent).
The brain drain has become a hot topic in Turkey in recent years as growing political pressure and worsening economic conditions have prompted many of the country’s most educated citizens to seek better opportunities abroad.
Turkey experiences a steady outflow of young, educated citizens amid worsening economic conditions, high youth unemployment and growing disillusionment with the country’s political climate.
The trend extends beyond university graduates to elite high school students. A growing number of graduates from prestigious institutions such as the İstanbul High School, Galatasaray High School and the German High School, which offer their students a bilingual education, now choose to move abroad for university, citing fears of unemployment, political repression and declining education standards in Turkey.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which has been ruling Turkey as a single-party government since 2002, is accused by its critics of eliminating academic freedom in the country and failing to provide scientists with the means to carry out their work.
After a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 followed by a systematic attack on academic freedom through the dismissal of professors from the country’s most prestigious universities and the cancellation of their passports as well as the shutting down of civil society and nongovernmental organizations, Turkish citizens began to feel the seriousness of the political pressure.
The latest studies on Turkey’s ongoing brain drain find that the rise of authoritarianism, religious nationalism, financial difficulties and the government’s strict control over universities are the main reasons for emigration.