TL,DR: I do not believe that the amount of Americans migrating to countries in the Global South to study in their public universities could become a large enough movement that they'd offset any previous predatory policy already enacted by the countries in question.
I've seen the user who replied in the post. They are most likely Mexican since I've seen them interact with some of my Mexican mutuals. I am guessing their answer comes in the tail of a particular conversation which sparked a lot of outrage, which to my mind has been misdirected towards the American immigrant population in Mexico, charging them with the appalling situation of the housing market in this country: An American woman who is working remotely in one of Mexico City's hip neighborhoods uploaded a picture inviting other Americans to work remotely in CDMX. Over the course of an entire afternoon, a lot of people started chastising her for it, because according to them, Americans working remotely in Mexico accentuate the problems already inherent in CDMX's and other cities' overstressed and speculative housing market. While some of the critiques were well-meaning and called for being conscious about the effects of American "working tourism" on local economies, most ended up devolving into horrible xenophobia. The controversy ended up having a positive side in that it sparked a big discussion over whether renters in Mexico should consider forming a union, and also a proposal for a Renter's Law.
So, here are my thoughts: Individuals emigrating from the Core towards the Semi-Periphery and Periphery tend to have overwhelming purchasing power that does distort the market in the communities in which they arrive, forcing changes that are sometimes not desired by the original inhabitants. However, their arrival in a particular location is usually at the tail end of a sequence of actions that have been taken before to make a community more agreeable to a certain population. In the CDMX example, the neighborhood in question, La Condesa, has been one of Mexico City's hip neighborhoods for the better part of 20 years and wasn't even a working-class neighborhood to begin with. In this sense, Americans doing work tourism in the global south is just the logical conclusion of policies and laws enacted years before their arrival. The same would go for Americans studying in, say, UNAM: For the average American to even begin considering studying in a public university in Mexico, that University would first have to be as welcoming of foreign students as it is of Mexican students, be able to provide equivalent certification in certain courses that would translate in their foreign students being able to work in their home countries, and there would have to be readily available housing and services to cater to the average American's expectations.
So yes: Americans living abroad, whether for work or studies, do have a gentrification effect in the communities in which they arrive in, but that effect is so minuscule compared to what a particular country's bourgeoisie regularly does to shift the market towards their profit that it might as well be negligible or be considered as part of the previous process. Rather than focusing on who can and cannot go to a particular country, we should look towards curbing Capital's power to modify our living conditions to their liking.
TL,DR: I do not believe that the amount of Americans migrating to countries in the Global South to study in their public universities could become a large enough movement that they'd offset any previous predatory policy already enacted by the countries in question.
I've seen the user who replied in the post. They are most likely Mexican since I've seen them interact with some of my Mexican mutuals. I am guessing their answer comes in the tail of a particular conversation which sparked a lot of outrage, which to my mind has been misdirected towards the American immigrant population in Mexico, charging them with the appalling situation of the housing market in this country: An American woman who is working remotely in one of Mexico City's hip neighborhoods uploaded a picture inviting other Americans to work remotely in CDMX. Over the course of an entire afternoon, a lot of people started chastising her for it, because according to them, Americans working remotely in Mexico accentuate the problems already inherent in CDMX's and other cities' overstressed and speculative housing market. While some of the critiques were well-meaning and called for being conscious about the effects of American "working tourism" on local economies, most ended up devolving into horrible xenophobia. The controversy ended up having a positive side in that it sparked a big discussion over whether renters in Mexico should consider forming a union, and also a proposal for a Renter's Law.
So, here are my thoughts: Individuals emigrating from the Core towards the Semi-Periphery and Periphery tend to have overwhelming purchasing power that does distort the market in the communities in which they arrive, forcing changes that are sometimes not desired by the original inhabitants. However, their arrival in a particular location is usually at the tail end of a sequence of actions that have been taken before to make a community more agreeable to a certain population. In the CDMX example, the neighborhood in question, La Condesa, has been one of Mexico City's hip neighborhoods for the better part of 20 years and wasn't even a working-class neighborhood to begin with. In this sense, Americans doing work tourism in the global south is just the logical conclusion of policies and laws enacted years before their arrival. The same would go for Americans studying in, say, UNAM: For the average American to even begin considering studying in a public university in Mexico, that University would first have to be as welcoming of foreign students as it is of Mexican students, be able to provide equivalent certification in certain courses that would translate in their foreign students being able to work in their home countries, and there would have to be readily available housing and services to cater to the average American's expectations.
So yes: Americans living abroad, whether for work or studies, do have a gentrification effect in the communities in which they arrive in, but that effect is so minuscule compared to what a particular country's bourgeoisie regularly does to shift the market towards their profit that it might as well be negligible or be considered as part of the previous process. Rather than focusing on who can and cannot go to a particular country, we should look towards curbing Capital's power to modify our living conditions to their liking.