For Pouya Seifzadeh, an associate teacher at SUNY Geneseo in Western New York, this year’s mass killings of protesters in Iran restores memories of oppression he and his peers faced while speaking out against the exact same regime 27 years earlier.
Back then, Seifzadeh joined his undergraduate schoolmates in Tehran in calling for more civil liberties. He took part in the 1999 demonstrations that began after Iranian officials prohibited the paper, Salam, for writings that criticised the country’s authoritarian government. Although the demonstrations were peaceful, the nation’s security forces assaulted students in their dormitories for participating, eliminating at least 4 and injuring over 300, according to Person Rights Watch. Seifzadeh keeps in mind hearing about students being tossed from their dormitory, falling several stories.
Since then, the Iranian program has actually stepped up its crackdown on dissent. In January, security forces and militias eliminated thousands– perhaps tens of thousands by some estimates– of people during demonstrations that started over the collapse of Iran’s currency. That consisted of killings at student-led demonstrations, according to The Guardian. “When I see so many trainees eliminated in the streets, I feel that there’s a greater degree of bitterness of the regime that existed ever before among this generation,” he stated.
After that came the war, now going into a 5th week, which started after United States and Israel airstrikes eliminated Iran’s supreme leader– followed by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, presuming the role. Khamenei has actually been criticised for having hardline views comparable to his father.
Political injustice is one reason much of Iran’s brightest students pick to study abroad and ultimately emigrate, Seifzadeh said. One poll found that 93% of Iranians surveyed have actually considered leaving the country– with greater percentages among students and university graduates. Iran Open Data, an organisation intending to promote transparency in Iran, carried out that survey on social networks to determine the level of Iran’s brain drain.
Seifzadeh left Iran in the early 2000s for a PhD program in business method in Ontario, Canada. He then transferred to the US with his spouse, likewise Iranian, for work as university professor. He said the majority of his classmates in Iran revealed a desire to leave, in the middle of an absence of chances, gender inequalities, and other obstacles.
“Iran is infamous for its brain drain and, for many Iranians, higher education is one of the most uncomplicated paths to immigration,” he said.
More than 110,000 Iranians are currently studying abroad. Nevertheless, for many students in Iran, studying in the US is no longer a choice due to the fact that of President Donald Trump’s travel restriction. Rather, Iran’s top academic skill is heading to other western nations, indicating that the United States can’t capitalise on Iran’s “brain drain” like it when did.
“Lots of [Iranians] significant in STEM fields. They extremely rapidly get used to US worths and a lot of them turn into business owners,” Seifzadeh stated. “Cutting them off, clearly, is going to impact the United States economy in science.”
Access to brand-new chances
For Iranian ladies, studying abroad can give them freedom to check out fields they’re barred from studying in their country, stated Ramesh Sepehrrad, a cybersecurity and government author and going to fellow at George Mason University in Virginia. In 2012, females were prohibited from 77 majors at Iranian universities, mostly engineering or accounting fields.
Sepehrrad moved from Iran to Buffalo, New York, as a teen in 1985 with her household looking for defense. A number of relative were kept as political prisoners in Iran, she stated, over their assistance for opposition groups. That included her sis, a student activist who was arrested at age 13 and put behind bars for two-and-a-half years.
Right after moving to the US, Sepehrrad began studying computer technology at the University of Buffalo. As a United States trainee, she keeps in mind having access to works from numerous viewpoints and liberty to pick any career path for the first time.
“I was among the fortunate ones to be managed the chance to leave the nation, to be here, safe, and to select my own discipline,” she said.
In Iran, laws likewise avoid females from working in specific fields or traveling outside the nation without consent from a male guardian– either a relative or their hubby. In addition, females are restricted from serving as judges or high-ranking federal government positions and have been put behind bars or flogged for breaching the country’s gown code.
These laws, Sepehrrad said, have led some of Iran’s brightest female doctors and trainees to emigrate in search for better opportunities. In Iran, women make up around 60% of university graduates, however only 14% are in the labor force, according to 2025 data from the World Bank.
Sepehrrad also pointed out years of violent crackdowns as a culprit for Iran’s brain drain. Video from this year reveals security forces entering into health centers and apparently avoiding medical personnel from dealing with injured protesters. Sepehrrad stated that, when police target doctors, nurses, and teachers, there’s little incentive to remain. In 2022 alone, 6,500 doctors, including 2,300 specialists, left Iran, according to Iran Open Data.
“This brain drain is going to lead into some sort of health crisis since there are inadequate doctors and medical professionals and nurses to handle the general public health scenario there,” she stated.
For many Iranians, college is one of the most simple paths to migration
Pouya Seifzadeh, SUNY Geneso
New destinations for international trainees
For Iranian global trainees, Canada, Turkey, Germany, Italy, and the US have actually been a few of the top destinations this years.
Throughout the 2024 scholastic year, before the travel ban rebooted, the US hosted around 12,600 trainees from Iran, according to the current data from Open Doors. That number fades in comparison to the 51,300 Iranians the country hosted in 1980.
In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, the US hosted more international trainees from Iran than any other nation, according to US State Department data. Those numbers have actually been falling ever since the 1979 transformation that set up Iran’s theocratic government. While Iranian student enrolment has diminished in the US over the decades, it’s been growing in other nations.
Canada hosts more than double the variety of Iranian students compared to the US– around 26,300, according to the Canadian federal government’s newest information. In Germany, the variety of Iranian trainees has tripled in the past 15 years, surpassing 13,000 in 2023, according to Germany’s statistical office.
Throughout the Trump administration’s first term, Iranian trainees were still permitted to study abroad in the US. His first two travel prohibits affecting Iran lasted just 90 days each and his 3rd ban made an exception for admitted trainees. Now, in Trump’s second term, his travel restriction on Iran consists of nonimmigrants such as students, unless they already had a visa before the ban came into result.
Seifzadeh thinks that the most recent travel restriction might have been better structured to concentrate on vetting people rather of prohibiting Iranians completely. He’s worried about the United States denying itself of highly informed Iranians who wish to get away the routine and would develop into patriotic Americans.
“That’s where I believe the United States could have done a much better task, not painting everyone with the very same brush,” he stated.
Nevertheless, he’s likewise concerned about pro-regime Iranians entering into the US and spying on regional Iranian neighborhoods. A few of Seifzadeh’s buddies who studied internationally were apprehended upon returning to Iran, he said, because someone in their circle was informing the regime.
Eventually, Seifzadeh expects a future where Iranians are devoid of oppression and complimentary to study anywhere they choose. While his instant household lives in the US, he fears for loved ones who are still residing in Iran amidst the war.
“A lot of the policies that the routine has pursued has isolated itself. That’s really had an effect on Iranian trainees,” he stated.
While many Iranian students have chosen to study worldwide, others have stayed at home and end up being leaders in the resistance movement. For decades, university campuses have worked as structures for the pro-democracy motion, Sepehrrad said. Much of her preferred slogans that protesters have actually been shouting originally started on campuses.
“I believe professors and university students have a really strong role to play for the movement for a totally free Iran, for rejecting any form of tyranny and saying we desire a secular republic,” she stated.
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