According to the latest Open Doors report from the Institute on International Education, in the 2023-24 academic year, there were 112,552 scholars from foreign nations teaching at colleges and universities in the United States. This was a 10 percent increase from the previous year. In the 2020-21 academic year, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were only 1,483 scholars from sub-Saharan African nations teaching at U.S. colleges and universities.
More than 36 percent of the international scholars teaching in the United States during the 2023-24 academic year were from India or China. There were 3,513 scholars from sub-Saharan African nations teaching at U.S. colleges and universities in the 2023-24 academic year. This was up more than 9 percent from the prior year. Scholars from sub-Saharan African nations made up only 3.1 percent of all foreign scholars teaching in the United States that year.
There were 931 scholars from Nigeria teaching in the U.S. during the 2023-24 academic year. This was by far the highest total from any nation in sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana sent 446 scholars to teach in the U.S. that year. Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa all sent at least 250 scholars to teach in the United States that year. Uganda, Cameroon, and Zimbabwe were the only other sub-Saharan African nations to send more than 100 scholars to teach at colleges and universities in the United States.
