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A greater investment in education ( h) is an optimal ex-ante response to a brain drain (BD). However, sending country governments must deal with the ex-post situation of residents with higher h but who failed to migrate. And though a net brain gain has been viewed as a benefit and referred to as a ‘ beneficial brain drain’ in the literature, its welfare impact for source country residents is at best ambiguous. Increased educational investment in response to a BD is equivalent to a bet where migrants ( M) win and the impact on residents ( R)—whose well-being is a concern for the government—is ambiguous or negative. I compare residents’ welfare for an open vs. a closed economy, a) under the presence or absence of an education externality, b) with or without government intervention, and c) with government’s concern equal for R and M ( R =  M) or greater for R ( R >  M). Main findings are: i) residents are worse off under an open economy in most scenarios, with an ambiguous result under an externality and no intervention; ii) optimal education policy under an externality has a positive (ambiguous) impact on residents’ welfare under a closed (open) economy; iii) residents’ welfare is higher under intervention for R >  M than for R =  M; iv) an increase in the immigration policy’s degree of skill-selectivity reduces residents’ welfare. One policy implication is that subsidizing higher education, which is optimal under an education externality in a closed economy, is not necessarily optimal under an open economy.JEL Codes: F22, I20, J61.