When the dollar keeps rising, who gets left behind?

In 2006, when I first packed my bags from Nigeria to study in the United States for my undergraduate degree, one US dollar exchanged for about 120 naira.

At the time, it felt expensive, but manageable. Families stretched, sacrifices were made, but the dream of international education still felt within reach for many middle-class African households. Studying abroad was aspirational, yes, but not impossible.

Ten years later, in 2016, I returned to the US for my master’s degree at Duke University. By then, the exchange rate had climbed to just under 400 naira to the dollar. I remember sitting with that number and thinking: this is insane. How are people supposed to afford this? It felt unsustainable. I genuinely wondered how the next generation of African students would make it work. At that time, I almost couldn’t make it work. 

Fast forward another ten years, to 2026, and that same dollar now exchanges for roughly 1,490 naira, sometimes fluctuating higher than that and as high as 1,600 naira.

When I pause and really sit with that figure, I don’t just feel concern. I feel grief. I feel anger. I feel fear.

Because at this point, we are no longer talking about inconvenience or sacrifice. We are talking about exclusion.

The cost of a dream is now a wall

Today, even students who ‘do everything right’ are being pushed out. Students who study relentlessly. Who take standardised tests multiple times. Who secure partial scholarships covering 50–60% of tuition. Who outperform global peers academically.

The remaining 40%, combined with living costs priced in hard foreign currency, has become insurmountable.

This is where loans once stepped in.

When I went to school in the US, international student loans were almost nonexistent. If you didn’t have a wealthy family or an American co-signer with strong credit, your options were slim. In that sense, progress has been made. Over the past decade, new financial institutions emerged, offering loans without co-signers, partnering with global universities, and opening doors that were previously shut to international students, including Africans.

But that progress is now under threat.

In 2026, many of these same organisations are facing serious funding constraints. Some are pulling back from certain regions. Others are tightening eligibility. And Africans, already burdened by currency devaluation, are among the most affected.

So where does that leave us?

With talented students holding offers they cannot use. With dreams deferred not by merit, but by macroeconomics and circumstances. With a system that rewards potential until you are born in the ‘wrong’ economy.

Global education for whom?

We often talk about globalisation. About international classrooms. About diversity of thought, perspective, and lived experience. Universities proudly highlight the number of countries represented on campus.

But we rarely interrogate the financial architecture underpinning this global system.

Is it fair that a student from Switzerland and a student from Mali pay the same ‘international fee’ in the UK or the US?

Is it reasonable that someone earning in pounds, euros, or dollars is assessed on the same tuition scale as someone earning in naira, shilling, or cedi?

Is this equality or is it a failure of equity? There is a difference.

Equality treats everyone the same, regardless of starting point. Equity acknowledges imbalance and seeks to correct it.

Right now, international education largely operates on equality, not equity, and it is systematically pricing out students from Africa, parts of South Asia, and other developing regions.

We are no longer talking about inconvenience or sacrifice. We are talking about exclusion.

The crisis no one wants to name

What worries me most is not just today, it’s what happens in the next five, ten, fifteen years from now. 

What happens when Africans stop applying altogether because it no longer feels worth the emotional and financial toll?

What happens to global classrooms when only students from stable, high-income economies can afford to show up?

What happens to research, innovation, diplomacy, and leadership pipelines when entire regions are excluded not by lack of talent, but by lack of access?

And perhaps the hardest question of all: is the global education system comfortable with that outcome?

Because if we are, then we should stop pretending this system is neutral.

What needs to change

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I know the questions matter.

Should tuition be indexed by country or income band? Should universities expand region-specific scholarships tied to currency realities? Should loan providers be better capitalised to weather global shocks? Should governments, institutions, and philanthropies treat education access as infrastructure, not a luxury?

These conversations are uncomfortable. They force us to confront power, privilege, and structural imbalance. But avoiding them doesn’t make the problem go away. It just ensures that the cost is paid by the same people, over and over again.

Why I’m writing this

I write this not as an outsider, but as someone who has lived through every phase of this story. As an African international student. As a beneficiary. As an advisor. And now, as a witness to a system that feels increasingly misaligned with the ideals it claims to uphold.

International education is still powerful. Still transformative. Still worth fighting for.

But if we truly believe in its promise, then we must be willing to redesign it for the world as it is, not the world as it was in 2006.

Because the dollar keeps rising. And if nothing changes, Africa keeps getting left behind.

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