I encouraged folks with strong English skills to apply to Canadian and UK unis in 2016 and got called hysterical and an extremist.

There's a big sunk cost in learning a language, but Canada and the UK have some fine unis. (No offense to Edinburgh but you're no Oxbridge yet -- I'd bet that Scotland declares independence and joins back with the EU at some point, the main reason independence failed last vote is a lot of the things they wanted they got via being in the EU.)