The Institute for International Education reports that in the 2012-13 academic year, there were 30,585 students from sub-Saharan Africa enrolled at colleges and universities in the United States. They made up 3.7 percent of the 819,644 foreign students at U.S. colleges and universities that year. The number of students from sub-Saharan Africa was up 1.8 percent from the prior year. But due to an overall increase in the number of foreign students of 7.2 percent, the percentage of all foreign students that were from sub-Saharan Africa decreased from 3.9 percent to 3.7 percent.
Among sub-Saharan African nations, Nigeria in 2012-13 sent the most students to American colleges and universities. That year there were 7,316 Nigerians studying here. Nigerian enrollments have tripled since 1995.
In 2012-13, Kenya ranked second, sending 3,516 students to the United States. But enrollments from Kenya have declined in recent years, including a nearly 10 percent drop this year alone. Ghana ranked third with 2,863 students at U.S. colleges and universities.
Zimbabwe, South Africa, Cameroon, and Ethiopia each had more than 1,000 students studying in this nation. Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Angola, Uganda, Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Rwanda all sent at least 500 students to study at U.S. colleges and universities.
All told, 52 nations from sub-Saharan Africa had college students studying in the U.S. during the 2012-13 academic year.
Undoubtedly, some of these students from sub-Saharan Africa nations such as Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe are White, but there is no data to report on the racial or ethnic makeup of this group of African students at U.S. colleges and universities.
