Pay4Me, one of the leading cross-border payment companies in Africa, is officially announcing the launch of its Study Abroad Feature. This feature aims to help students access the best study abroad programs with funding opportunities and enjoy admission and visa support services from US, UK, and Canada-based experts.
In addition, the feature will help students find discounted student housing, air ticketing, transportation, and more. With Pay4Me’s Study Abroad Feature, economically disadvantaged students can enjoy student loans to countries like the United States and Canada without collaterals, cosigners, or credit history.
The Reality
Culture Intelligence from RED, in partnership with the University of Sussex, released the 2022 Nigeria Market Sentiments and Study Motivations Report, which stated that 89.87 percent of young Nigerians prefer overseas university education.
The study revealed that the most preferred destinations for Nigerian students are the United Kingdom (32.71 percent), Canada (16.67 percent), the United States (16.54 percent), Germany (10.6 percent), and Australia (7.96 percent).
Furthermore, $882 million was spent on education-related expenditures by Nigerians in the first half of 2022, a 34.3% increase compared to the $657 million spent in the second half of last year.
According to The PUNCH, Nigerians spent $609.5m on foreign education between January and August 2022.
The figure is contained in the data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria, calculated based on the information provided on the amount spent on educational services under the sectoral utilization for transactions valid for foreign exchange.
In January 2022, the apex bank noted that a total of $60,202,730.84 was spent on foreign education while noting that $69.9m was spent in February 2022.
Since 2015, the preferred destinations for Nigerian students are the United Kingdom, followed by the United States and Malaysia.
Thousands also study in other countries, including Turkey, Ukraine, Hungary, Finland, Cyprus, Italy, Romania, France, Ireland, Poland, Estonia, Greece, Sweden, The Netherlands and Norway.
Drivers of interest in foreign education
The rising exchange rate has made studying abroad challenging for many average students. To compound this challenge, making cross-border payments have denied many prospective students their admissions and crashed their dreams of a better life.
Multiple factors are contributing to students’ interest in foreign education. These include rising insecurity, including banditry, terrorism, and kidnapping, seemingly never-ending university strikes, a high youth unemployment rate (42.5%, according to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics), police brutality and a persistent level of underinvestment in tertiary education compared with global standards.
The solution
Pay4Me’s mission is to simplify cross-border tuition and fee payments like WES and SEVIS to universities, colleges, and government agencies. With this feature, a student can find and apply to world-class study abroad programs with funding opportunities.
We want to help students create endless educational possibilities in all they do and build seamless solutions to help them achieve their goals.
We ensure that cross-border transactions happen within 10 minutes, with the support of a professional customer care support team working 24/7.
The Study Abroad Feature represents Pay4Me’s commitment to offering every student an opportunity to power their dreams and become the solutions Nigeria needs in the future.
