Britain is facing a brain drain by losing its brightest young boffins to America

Britain is facing a brain drain by losing its brightest young boffins and boffinesses to America.

Clever eggheads are warning of a mass exodus because our universities are becoming too expensive, while US institutions still pay for brainiacs to learn.

Boffs believe the UK needs to find a solution quickly to ensure it doesn’t “lose its best players’”.

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Chrome dome clever clogs are increasingly turning to a life in America for their top-level studies on things like AItechnologies and breakthrough science.

Some are turning their backs on traditional British Universities like Oxford and Cambridge, as Ivy League institutions over there – even though they have much higher tuition costs – still offer scholarships.

Some of them are even fully funded and can include tuition, accommodation and expenses worth over £250,000.

Here, it’s £45,000 straight from a boffin’s pocket just for tuition fees alone.

Two East London students are off to Boston, having turned down expensive Oxbridge.

Both of them chose to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with full scholarships as they said staying here would leave them in huge debt before even beginning their careers.

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Fully funded scholarships, even for those from less privileged backgrounds, are nearly non-existent in the UK.

And experts believe the “generosity of the US scholarship programme” may increasingly seem more appealing to cash-strapped young British boffins.

Mohammed Isuf Ahmed, 22, who studied physics and aerospace engineering, said: “It is ludicrous that a British student can get more support at an Ivy League university than at one in the UK.

“That means that the best educated and qualified people will end up working in the US.

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“More and more students are looking at the US as an option, particularly given the generosity of the scholarship programme.”

Tafsia Shikdar, 23, who studied engineering, said: “I could have gone to Oxford or Cambridge but MIT offered to pay my tuition.

“It was a no-brainer in the end.”

Prof Lewis Halsey, at Roehampton Uni, said that America’s “more generous scholarships” can be a “very attractive proposition” for UK students.

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And he warned that Britain needs to find a way to keep its brightest minds in the country amid fears of a brain drain.

He told your Daily Star: “While the tuition costs at many of America’s top institutions are extremely high, those universities typically offer far more, and more generous, scholarships than UK universities do.

“If UK students find that, having got strong school grades, they can successfully apply for scholarships at US institutions, that’s surely a very attractive proposition for them.

“Like a professional football club, the UK might want to think about what it needs to do, to ensure it doesn’t lose its best ‘players’ to the opposition.”

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