Just as free trade provides the lowest-cost goods and services, benefiting both consumers and the most efficient producers, global academic competition is making free movement of people and ideas, on the basis of merit, more and more the norm, with enormously positive consequences for individuals, universities, and countries. Today's swirling patterns of mobility and knowledge transmission constitute a new kind of free trade: free trade in minds.
事实上，全球学术培育所产生的经济效益是极为巨大的。正如自由贸易提供了最低成本的商品和服务，令消费者和最有效率的生产者双双得益，全球学术竞争则使得人才和新理念得以自由流动，公平竞争，并越来越成为常态，最终无论对个人，学员还是国家都产生了正面的影响。而如今这种人员和知识循环流动传播的模式也催生了一种新形式的自由贸易——思维的自由贸易。