At this rate, the twenty-first century will not be Turkey’s century. There will be no Turkish miracle like the Korean miracle. Not by producing small fry and accepting a narrow mindset.

All parents wish a better life and better qualifications for their children. The other day I asked, “Would you invest in a nice house or education for your children?” I meant to emphasize that there is something fundamentally wrong in Turkey. Today’s keyword is "quality." The quality of the skills set of the labor force is more important than ever, yet there is no action. Albeit the Baath-style, big talks rallying in the group meetings of political parties, the situation is clear for those who want to see and hear.

Associate professor Oğuz Ergin of TOBB University of Economics and Technology carried out a study that validates the gravity of the situation. He estimates the average amount of investment a family makes in a single child and calculates how many years it takes for the return. In the case of Turkey, the investment returns in about forty years. This is exactly what I meant when I claimed that there is something fundamentally wrong in Turkey. Considering the new immigration legislation of President Obama, which aims to make it easier for international students who study in the US to stay and work in the country after graduation, I want you to consider the issue.

Let me start with the calculations of professor Ergin’s study. He measures the feasibility of investment via a simple calculation method. Excluding variables like interest rate, inflation, or exchange rate he basically calculates in how many years the nominal investment yields returns. According to this, education is not a good investment option by Turkey’s standards. But not if your child is going to work in the US.

Here are some details from the study: “Assume that your child went to a private school for two years of preschool and twelve years of primary and secondary education. The annual tuition for TED Collage, a prominent school in Ankara, is 46,000 liras for preschool, 15,400 liras for primary school, and 18,150 liras for secondary and high school. The cost of 14 years of education is around 300,000 liras...Meanwhile,” he says, “your child has to attend private training schools for around five years. If you choose a well-known one, it will cost you about 30,000 liras, at 6,000 per year.” So, when your daughter or son graduates from high school, you will have paid a total of 330,000 liras for education. And this does not include the additional investment you would have made in foreign language education, sports training, or the time you will have spent driving him or her to and from training sessions, food and transportation. I think Ergin’s estimations are optimistic and that the actual amount is at least two to three times more.

Anyway, then comes the university education. If your son or daughter cannot acquire a scholarship, you might choose to pay for the best private school so as to guarantee him or her a bright future. This would cost you 36,500 liras a year, or 182,500 liras for five years (one year of English preparatory class and four years of study for a bachelor’s degree). This investment makes 500,000 liras. If you send him or her to a doctoral program at Harvard for a global profession, it will cost you 40,000 dollars a year for fees and 20,000 dollars a year for accommodation and daily expenses, adding up to 300,000 dollars. One dollar is 2 liras. The total cost of your child’s doctorate studies is then 600,000 liras. The nominal value of the investment you have to make so that your child has a globally accepted profession is 1,100,000 liras.

Let’s say that he or she is committed to making a contribution to Turkey and so returns home after graduation. Professor Ergin says, “if he or she earns 5,000 liras a year, lives on half of it and the other half corresponds to the return on education,” it will take 38 years to offset the initial investment. Does this count as an investment? Absolutely not; not in Turkey. Just mark my words.

In fact, this is why Turkey has the lowest level of educational attainment among countries in the same income group. Everyone can do the math and prefers to buy a parcel of land instead of investing in education. For more on this, you may read TEPAV policy analyst Esen Çağlar’s blog post Why is Turkey an Odd Country?

At this rate, the twenty-first century will not be Turkey’s century. There will be no Turkish miracle like the Korean miracle. Not by producing the small fry and living with a narrow mindset. Rather, Turkey’s creative class goes to another country. You can't keep them from going. All you can do is watch their backs as they leave.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 01.10.2013