The paper discusses the working model of nationally funded study-abroad programme 'Bolashak'. The word means 'future' in the Kazakh language with an implication of investing in the human capital of the country for the nation's economic and social prosperity. According to the statistics of the Programme, from 2005 through 2011, the Bolashak has granted 3379 Bachelor’s degree scholarships, 3 411 Master's degree scholarships and 136 PhD scholarships. 3031 recipients preferred British universities, 2287 students chose US universities, 741 students – Russian academic institutions. The current literature on the impact of academic mobility trends on building economic potential in transition economies (OECD 2012, Altbach & Knight 2007) does not provide much analysis of this global phenomenon in the context of Eurasia. The paper discusses rationales for initiating the Programme. It examines students' attitudes, key trajectories and reforms within the programme development. The analysis of the Bolashak model is likely to be relevant for countries which are interested in initiating similar out-bounding student mobility programmes for their own social and economic benefits such as Azerbaijan and Russia. It is worth-mentioning that one of the authors has been a Bolashak programme administrator who witnessed the early stages of programme development.