Black African Scholars Teaching at U.S. Colleges and Universities: Nigeria and Kenya Send the Largest Contingents

According to the Institute of International Education, during the 2008-09 academic year there were 113,494 foreign scholars teaching at colleges and universities throughout the United States. Of these, 3,800, or 3.3 percent, were from the African continent.

About 30 percent of these African scholars were from the Arab nations of North Africa, mostly from Egypt. But there were about 2,700 academics from black African nations teaching in the U.S.

There were 441 black academics from Nigeria teaching at U.S. colleges and universities in the 2008-09 academic year. This was the most from any black African nation. Kenya came in a very close second with 440 scholars teaching in the United States.

Other countries sending more than 100 scholars to teach at U.S. institutions of higher learning were Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ghana, and South Africa.

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