My overall impression: young people seem to be very eager (or even desperate) to leave Romania. Some for good, some intend to return.

As far as I could see their educational level is quite good even though they are obviously dis-satisfied with both the incompetence from the educational system and with the lack of appreciation of their skills while they go in the business world. I guess one leads to the other though. Besides, one of their frequent complaint was the lack of choices and lack of advisors, some even claimed they prefer to be self learners, which certainly makes a lot of sense in the context.

As such the reasons for they wanting to leave Romania are twofold: for once the higher educational system is not competitive though the foundation is good, and secondly after graduation they will be exposed to a business environment which i) doesn't appreciate them at their value and ii) is not providing intelectual challenges.

I think that the above together with Deea's impressions (and my comments to them) and my little story from Troniu's create an overall picture of what is going on. (sorry, those are in Romanian only). To some point, if I were to wear their shoes I tend to somewhat agree - also the Romanian society is not very encouraging for a culture promoting the youth, at least not in business.

On a particular note Norwegians seem to be quite happy with Romanians, and actually they just signed a partnership with ASE. (ok, it took them more than two years to have it signed, but still) They are quite optimistic about the future and apparently are willing to pour money into successfull partnerships. If only the Romanian part were to be singing the same tune -- there's lot of availability and opportunities to explore.