African Scholars Teaching at U.S. Colleges and Universities

In the 2005-06 academic year, there were 96,981 foreign scholars teaching at American colleges and universities. The number of foreign scholars was up 8.2 percent from the previous year. More than 80 percent of these foreign scholars are from either Europe or Asia. Only 2,421, or 2.5 percent, are from Africa. The number of African scholars teaching at American colleges and universities was up 3.6 percent from a year earlier.

Nearly one third of the African scholars teaching in the United States are from the Arab nations of North Africa. Today there are about 1,600 scholars from black African nations currently teaching at U.S. colleges and universities. Scholars from 40 black African nations taught at U.S. colleges and universities during the 2005-06 academic year. South Africa sent 304 scholars to teach in the U.S., more than any other black African nation. But it is not known how many of these South African scholars teaching in the U.S. are white.

Among other black African nations, Nigeria sent 265 scholars to teach in the United States. Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Senegal, and Tanzania were the only other black African nations to send as many as 50 scholars to teach at American universities.

Copyright © 2007. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.