Nigerians spend $1.39bn on foreign education in H1 2025
Nigerians allocated $1.39 billion (N2.16 trillion) for foreign education in the first half of 2025, marking a significant increase compared to the same timeframe in 2024.
This total signifies a 20 percent rise in dollar value and a 38 percent increase in naira, calculated using an average exchange rate of N1,553.6 per dollar during the period.
The information, sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Balance of Payments report, highlights the growing trend of educational migration, spurred by persistent issues within Nigeria’s domestic education system.
The CBN report indicates that there were no revenues reported under “Education” in the services trade balance, demonstrating that while Nigeria heavily invests in educating its citizens abroad, it attracts nearly no foreign students to its own educational institutions.
This $1.39 billion outflow represents the highest expenditure on foreign education for the first half of the year since 2021 and occurs in the context of a significant depreciation of the naira following the Central Bank’s FX liberalization reforms in mid-2023.
Despite a more stable exchange rate in 2025 compared to the fluctuations experienced in 2024, Nigerians continued to seek education overseas in large numbers.
Various structural factors contribute to this trend, including diminishing trust in the quality of local universities, frequent strikes by academic staff, deteriorating infrastructure, and overcrowded classrooms.
Furthermore, international education is increasingly perceived not only as an academic endeavor but also as a means of migration, especially among middle- and upper-class families looking for better future opportunities for their children.
From 2020 to the first half of 2025, Nigerians are estimated to have spent a total of $11.1 billion (N9.9 trillion) on foreign education, according to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
This figure accounts for approximately 2.6 percent of Nigeria’s annual nominal GDP during this period and, in many cases, exceeds the combined education budgets of both federal and state governments.
For reference, the Federal Government allocated N2.52 trillion for education in the 2025 national budget, representing around 5% of total public spending.
This allocation remains significantly below UNESCO’s suggested guideline of 15–20 percent of government spending on education.
In stark contrast, Nigerian families spent N2.16 trillion on foreign education in just the first half of 2025, an amount nearly equivalent to the entire annual budget allocated by the government for the education sector.
Despite these substantial outflows of capital related to education, Nigeria’s education sector continues to receive very little foreign investment.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics reveals that capital importation into the education sector amounted to only $150,000 over the past ten years, highlighting the sector’s extremely low appeal to investors.
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