Five African cities provide the majority of students native to the continent who study abroad, according to a new report.
The report, released by the Brookings Institution and JPMorgan Chase, offers insight to the origin and destination of foreign students who come to the United States to pursue higher learning in universities and colleges. The report highlighted five cities in Africa that sent a total of 15,107 students to study abroad, especially at U.S. universities and colleges, between 2001 and 2012.
The majority of the African students come from Lagos, Nigeria; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Accra, Ghana; Cairo, Egypt; and Nairobi, Kenya. Most of those countries possess a fast-growing economy, especially Nigeria, whose gross domestic product recently passed that of South Africa.
According to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, African students who come to the U.S. to seek higher education spend about $300 million in tuition and about $165 million on living and other miscellaneous expenses.
According to the Brookings Institution, about two-thirds of foreign students tend to flock towards the science, technology, engineering, and, mathematics, or “STEM” fields.
American universities remain the top destination for foreign students who decide to pursue higher learning abroad. According to the report, in the 2012-2013 school year the United States boasted a total of 819,644 foreign students studying in its universities and colleges, a 7 percent increase from the previous year.
