You could argue that the UK does something similar - if you are from Scotland and go to a Scottish university then no fees (~£9K a year).

The difference is that this doesn't cause any incentive to stay in Scotland after your education nor for anybody from the rest of the UK to move to Scotland after their education.

That is true - although being of an age where I have kids a university I do know people who have stayed in Scotland because they have multiple kids wanting to go to university.

And here is a discussion about someone considering moving to Scotland because of the fees situation:

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1698260...

The 'problem' with this policy is that it cannot be used to direct people to the parts of Scotland where they 'need' people the most. In the Norwegian approach the government draws up a list of counties and says you have to move to one of the counties to get the benefits, and they can update that list as the situation changes.

Of course, reasonable people can certainly disagree on whether or not this is something the government should be involved in at all.

More specifically, there's a problem with recruitment of GPs and other public service professionals to remote communities in Scotland.

Mind you, there's a general GP and NHS recruitment crisis already which has been compounded by Brexit uncertainty.

Indeed and that is that rationale used by the Norwegian government. The counter argument is that if the only way to have a viable remote community somewhere is for the government to heavily subsides people to live there then perhaps you shouldn't have a remote community there.

Personally I'm rather conflicted about which side of the debate I come down on.