University Education: Worth the Cost?
A recent poster on popular question-and-answer website Quora asked how one could get a student loan with a low or zero interest rate—in Nigeria. The question attracted a fair amount of expected incredulity and a few clever quips. After all, everyone knows there’s no financial aid (i.e., student loans) in the Nigerian education system. But there are merit-based grants; the federal and state governments offer Nigerian students scholarships for study within and outside Nigeria, as do local and foreign companies, NGOs, and other governments. The Quora question does demonstrate how sought-after higher education is—the country’s 150 universities received 10 million applications between 2010 and 2015 and Nigerian immigrants have the highest levels of education in the United States, far ahead of whites and Asians—and how inadequate current assistance is for Africa’s most populous country. The question also highlights a disconcerting fact: without a financial aid system to help students along, ...