We develop a theoretical model of human skill formation and emigration.

We extend the existing brain drain models, by partly endogenizing the heterogeneity

of individuals, by introducing aspirations. Emigration of an individual

will result in a migration experience, which increases the migrant's aspirations.

This will induce her to invest more in the education of her children back home.

We find that this aspirations effect increases the average skill level in the society

for a given migration rate. We show that the optimal migration rate

that maximizes the post-migration skill-rate of the population is higher if we

allow for the aspirations effect of migration. We use panel data from Indonesia

to demonstrate that a migration experience has an aspirations increasing

effect and calibrate our model accordingly. Our results suggest that there are

potentially more countries than previously thought which could benefit from

migration.