This paper analyzes the impact of trade openness on education and environmental preservation choices in a two country North-South model. Parents may invest in their children's education increasing their probability to become skilled and in maintenance investment in order to preserve present and future environmental quality. In autarky, unskilled individuals in the South economy are unable to invest in education due to endogenous borrowing constraints. Moreover, unskilled individuals in both countries choose not to invest in environmental preservation. Openness to trade modifies relative factor prices and increases pollution. This allows for human capital convergence between both economies and induce all individuals to contribute to environmental preservation in the post-trade equilibrium. In the latter, all individuals choose to invest in education while environmental quality can be both larger or smaller than in autarky. We also focus on the optimal allocation under free trade and conclude that a maintenance investment subsidy dependent on the skill level must be implemented together with appropriate lump-sum taxes.