Nigerian enrollment in US schools goes up yearly ―Envoy

United States Consul General F. John Bray

IN spite of high rate of US dollar against Naira (about N361\dollar as at Tuesday, more many Nigerians are going to the United States of America, USA, to study in one post-secondary school or the other.

The Consul General of the US Embassy in Lagos, John Bray, made this disclosure on Tuesday in his remark at the pre-departure orientation programme organised for the new set of students from Nigeria heading to the USA to study, this fall.

The programme, holding annually, is designed to prepare new students ahead of their entry into the US so as to be able to make the most of their educational experience in the country very easy.

According to the envoy, the number of Nigerians studying in the United States has been going up for the past seven years and the number of those going this year increased by 9.7% from that of last year.

He noted that, of more than one million international students currently in the US, 35,364 of them are from Sub-Saharan Africa with Nigeria has the highest figure in Africa and 12th in the world.

Giving their statistics, he said they were 11,710 in all and 49.5% of them are undergraduates, 36.2% graduates, 2% non-degree candidates while the remaining 12.3% are on what he called Optional Practical Training.

He noted that they were in about 800 institutions spread across each of the 50 states in the country with 1,540 from the figure schooling in Texas alone.

And one major reason for the increase of Nigerian students in the U.S, he explained, is the value that Nigerians place on a quality education, which he said the US schools offered.

While congratulating the new students on their admissions, he encouraged them to be good ambassadors of Nigeria in their various host communities.

He said such was necessary as they might be the only Nigerians that many Americans would meet and form a perception about the people of Nigeria.