For a certain kind of Nigerian family, this stopped being a question some years ago and became an assumption.
The plan forms early. Money is set aside, sometimes for a decade. Property is sold. Relatives contribute. The whole thing takes on the weight of a family project, and by the time the child is seventeen, nobody is really asking whether it is a good idea — only how to fund it.
It often is a good idea. It is also, frequently, the largest financial decision a family will ever make, taken on the basis of very little analysis and a great deal of social pressure.
This article is not an argument against it. It is the set of questions worth answering before committing.
Be honest about the actual reason
There are several distinct motivations, and they lead to different decisions. Most families are driven by more than one and have never separated them.
Educational quality. A genuine belief that the teaching, facilities, and research access are better.
Certainty of completion. Not being subject to strike action, and knowing a four-year course will take four years.
Migration. The degree as a route to a work visa and eventual residence. This is a legitimate goal and frequently the actual one, though families often describe it as being about education.
Status. What it means among relatives and at church to have a child abroad.
Escape. A belief that the child’s prospects at home are limited regardless of what they achieve.
Being clear about which of these is driving the decision changes everything downstream. A family whose real goal is migration should choose a country and a course by immigration pathway, not by university ranking. A family whose goal is genuinely educational may find that a strong Nigerian institution plus a foreign postgraduate degree costs a fraction and achieves more.
If the honest answer is mostly status, that is worth knowing before selling land.
The money, calculated properly
Most families underestimate the total by a wide margin, because they price the tuition and then discover everything else.
What to actually budget:
- Tuition, for every year, allowing for annual increases
- Accommodation — often comparable to or exceeding tuition
- Living costs, at that city’s actual rate, not a national average
- Health insurance or surcharge, which several countries require upfront
- Visa fees, and immigration health surcharges where they apply
- Flights, including at least one emergency return
- Setup costs on arrival — deposits, bedding, winter clothing, a laptop
- Currency risk
That last one destroys more of these plans than anything else. A family that budgets in naira against a fee denominated in pounds or dollars can find the real cost has risen substantially between the first year and the third, through no change in the fees at all.
The test: can you fund the entire course from resources you already have, assuming the exchange rate worsens by 30% and the student earns nothing?
If the answer requires the child to work substantial hours, requires the naira to hold, or requires future income you do not yet have, you are not funding a degree — you are starting one and hoping.
The worst outcome is not being unable to go. It is going, completing two years, running out of money, and returning with no qualification and the money gone. This happens constantly and it is rarely discussed.
The question about the child
Set the money aside for a moment.
Are they ready to live alone? Not academically — practically and emotionally. Can they cook, budget, manage a bank account, get themselves to appointments, ask for help from strangers? A child who has never done any of these because there was always staff or family will be learning them in a foreign country, in winter, alone.
How do they handle isolation? The mental health picture for international students is genuinely difficult. Loneliness, cultural adjustment, the absence of any familiar face, and the enormous pressure of knowing what the family sacrificed. Some students thrive. Some struggle badly, and the ones who struggle often hide it precisely because of the sacrifice.
Do they actually want this? Some do, powerfully. Others are executing their parents’ plan and have never been asked. A student who did not choose this will find the difficult first year much harder to push through.
Is the course theirs? Families frequently fund a degree they selected. Four years is a long time to study something you did not choose, thousands of miles from anyone who knows you.
The country question
Different destinations offer genuinely different propositions, and they shift with immigration policy — which changes frequently and sometimes abruptly.
What to research for any destination, current as of the year you are applying:
- Whether students may work during study, and for how many hours
- Whether a post-study work visa exists, for how long, and what it requires
- Whether dependants may accompany the student
- Whether the qualification is recognised where the child ultimately intends to work
- The total cost relative to comparable options
Critically: these rules change. Several major destinations have altered student and post-study rules significantly in recent years, sometimes with limited notice. A plan built on a policy that existed when your child was fifteen may not hold when they are eighteen. Check the current official government position at the point of applying, not what a relative or an agent told you two years ago.
The alternatives worth pricing before deciding
A strong Nigerian or African university, then a foreign master’s. Frequently the highest-value route. A one-year master’s abroad costs a fraction of a four-year undergraduate degree, often carries the same immigration benefits, and the student arrives more mature. For families whose real goal is migration, this deserves serious comparison.
Nigerian private universities. Considerably cheaper than going abroad, generally free of strike disruption, and improving. Compare properly rather than dismissing.
Regional options. Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa and others cost far less than Europe or North America, and for some fields carry genuine reputation.
Professional qualifications. For accounting, finance, and several other fields, an internationally recognised professional qualification obtained while working may open more doors than a foreign degree, at a small fraction of the cost.
Remote and online degrees. Increasingly credible for some subjects, though check carefully how the qualification is regarded in the field the child intends to enter.
Beware the agent
A large industry exists to move students abroad, and much of it is paid commission by the institutions it recommends.
Signs to be careful of: guarantees of a visa (nobody can guarantee this), pressure to decide quickly, recommendations confined to a small set of institutions, large upfront fees, and unwillingness to explain how they are compensated.
Verify independently. Check the institution on the relevant government’s official register of licensed providers. Check the course on the university’s own website rather than the agent’s material. Apply directly where possible — many universities accept direct applications and it costs less.
The family cost nobody budgets
The younger siblings. If the entire family resource goes to one child, what happens to the others? Families frequently fund the first child’s foreign education and then find nothing remains. Decide in advance, and be honest with all the children about it.
Your retirement. Selling the property that was your security, or emptying a pension, transfers your future onto your child’s shoulders. If the plan is that they will support you afterwards, say so explicitly rather than assuming it.
The obligation placed on the child. A student who knows the family sold land for them carries that into every exam. Some are driven by it. Others are crushed. It is worth telling them plainly that their worth does not depend on the return on this investment.
The possibility they do not come back. Be honest with yourself. Many do not. If your plan assumes their return, and their plan assumes settling, that conflict should surface now rather than in six years.
The Christian dimension
A few things worth weighing, briefly.
Provision for your children is commended in Scripture, and seeking good education for them is a reasonable expression of it. There is nothing unspiritual about wanting your child to do well.
But two cautions apply. The first is that impoverishing yourself and your other children for one child’s prospects is not obviously wise stewardship, and Scripture’s instruction to provide for your household is not limited to the most promising member of it.
The second is about what the decision is really serving. If a substantial part of the motivation is what people will say, that is worth naming honestly, because it is an expensive thing to purchase and it does not last.
Also worth preparing for: a young person leaving a Christian home for a secular foreign university will encounter serious challenges to their faith. Address that before they go rather than after — and address it by discussing it openly, not by extracting promises.
The short version
Go if the education is genuinely better for what this child wants to do, or if migration is the honest goal and this is the effective route to it.
Fund it only if you can complete it without the exchange rate cooperating, without the child working long hours, and without emptying what the rest of the family needs.
Send a child who wants to go, has chosen the course, and can look after themselves.
And price the alternatives properly first — because for a significant number of families, the Nigerian degree plus a foreign master’s achieves more of what they actually want, for a fraction of what they were about to spend.
General guidance only. Immigration rules and costs change frequently — verify current requirements with the official government source for your destination before making any commitment.
