The intention of university students to emigrate. Comparative study in four Venezuelan Universities

The main asset of the global knowledge society is intellectual capital. It is the new factor of production that makes the difference between underdeveloped, emerging and advanced countries. This group of nations competes with different strategies to attract professional personnel to allow them to improve their performance by generating new knowledge. This research focuses on assessing the intention to migrate of Venezuelan students currently in the last two years of their undergraduatestudies. Data was collected at four universities: two public and two private ones. Surveys were carried out among four distinct student groups in health sciences, social sciences, basic sciences and engineering. The results indicate that Venezuela would be losing significant percentages of new cadres of professionals in the short term. In that scenario, the country would be mortgaging its development, by not having geolocation and linking strategies with those who migrate.