Nigeria ranks 8th as 21,847 students enroll in US universities in 2024/2025

By Lawrence Agbo

Nigeria now ranks 8th among nations that send students to the US, with 21,847 Nigerians attending US universities during the 2024–2025 academic year.

Nigerian enrollment has steadily increased over the last five sessions, according to data from the Open Doors report.

The number of students increased steadily from slightly under 13,000 in 2020–2021 to over 14,000 the next year, over 17,000 in 2022–2023 and over 20,000 in 2023–2024. The most recent count shows an additional 9.1% annual increase.

Nigeria lost one spot in the global ranking despite the increase, as Taiwan’s total was greater.

Nevertheless, the nation continues to rank among the top contributors to the number of international students studying in the US.

With almost 1.1 million students enrolled in recent sessions, the more comprehensive data shows that overall international enrollment in the US is still high.

Analysts point out that although Nigeria’s statistics are still on the rise, the rate of expansion has slowed somewhat in comparison to previous spikes.

After dominating the top for almost ten years, China has now lost ground to India as the greatest source of international students in the United States.

After gradually increasing to 277,398 students in 2023–2024, India surpassed China with 331,602 students in 2023–2024 and 363,019 in 2024–2025.

On the opposite extreme, with 5,667 and 5,627 students, respectively, over the previous two years, Peru and Hong Kong had some of the lowest enrollments.

The research states that the number of international students enrolled in the US increased by 3% in 2023–2024 and by 4.5% in 2024–2025, reaching an all-time high of over 1.1 million.

However, when the second term of President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, fresh international student enrollments started to show signs of declining around the conclusion of the previous semester. This was due to emerging policy developments.

According to reports, increased limitations, vetting, and enforcement, which started in early 2025 and resulted in visa issues and uncertainty that turned off some potential students, were the main US immigration policies and activities that had an impact on enrollment during the session.