As shrinking public investment in higher education, rising foreign exchange costs and expensive international application processes put postgraduate studies beyond the reach of many young Nigerians, education experts are warning that access to advanced education is increasingly being determined by income rather than academic merit, raising fresh concerns over the country’s capacity to build the high-level workforce needed for economic development.
Although Nigeria has one of Africa’s largest youth populations, government spending on education has consistently remained below the UNESCO benchmark of 15 to 20 per cent of total public expenditure. Combined with the depreciation of the naira, the cost of international examinations, transcript processing, visa applications and university fees has placed graduate education beyond the reach of many qualified candidates, prompting growing dependence on foreign scholarships and philanthropic interventions.

The trend is reflected in the latest intake of the iScholar Initiative (iSI), which has inducted 100 scholars into its 2026 cohort. Since its establishment in 2019, the organisation has supported 555 young Africans seeking fully funded postgraduate education abroad through mentorship, examination support and application guidance.

President of the initiative, Victor Ogunmola, said financial constraints continue to prevent many academically qualified graduates from pursuing master’s and doctoral programmes despite meeting admission requirements.

According to him, the initiative has recorded an 85 per cent success rate in helping scholars secure fully funded graduate admissions and scholarships valued at more than $45 million. Beneficiaries receive support for examinations such as the GRE, GMAT and TOEFL, application preparation, mentorship and professional networking.

He argued that the country’s development depends on creating pathways for talented graduates to access advanced education irrespective of their financial background, noting that many qualified applicants abandon their ambitions because they cannot afford application-related expenses.

Chairman of the Nigerian American Multicultural Council, Ufoma Ewerhido, said persistence remained essential in the increasingly competitive global scholarship environment, urging beneficiaries to continue applying despite repeated setbacks.

Vice-President of Finance of the initiative, Dr Oluseyi Ajayi, said sustained investment in postgraduate education yields long-term economic and social benefits, adding that the achievements of beneficiaries would determine continued donor confidence.

Former beneficiaries currently studying in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan said mentorship and financial assistance enabled them to overcome repeated scholarship rejections and pursue doctoral studies that would otherwise have remained inaccessible.

Education analysts have argued that while initiatives such as iScholar are expanding opportunities for a limited number of students, they also underscore the need for stronger public investment in postgraduate education, research funding and merit-based scholarships to reduce Nigeria’s growing dependence on external funding for advanced human capital development.