Nigeria has highest students’population in US ― Embassy

THE United States of America, USA, has said Nigerian students’ population in the country is the highest from Sub-Saharan Africa.

The U.S. Consulate Public Affairs Officer, Mr Russell Brooks, made this disclosure on Tuesday, in his remark at the EducationUSA Annual College and Career Fair held in Lagos.

The programme, holding annually with this year’s edition 19th in the series, is designed to woo Nigerians to study one course or the other in the US colleges and universities. The edition was co-organised with the Supreme Education Foundation at Magodo, Lagos.

According to Brooks, of more than one million international students currently in the US, 35,364 of them are from Sub-Saharan Africa with Nigeria has over 11,000, which is the highest of the sub-region.

He said some are undergraduates, while some are graduates or non-degree candidates and the rest are doing what he called Optional Practical Training and that so many of them were on self- financing while the rest were on scholarship-either partially or wholly.

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While Brooks also noted that the US has more than 4,500 accredited institutions and offers everything from two year Associate degrees to four-year bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees, he asked the participants to also learn about student visas and steps for application.

He said, “A top priority for us is to support Nigeria in its effort to develop the huge potential of its economy and of its human capital and in order to do that, one leg of our effort is to help enhance educational opportunities for young Nigerians.

“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.”