Africa visa denials to study abroad exceed every continent, on steady rise

The Shorelight Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education analysis examines these trends between 2015 and 2022, a period that captures data over three US administrations and both pre- and post-Covid pandemic mobility.

In Europe, nearly one-third of Africans applying for a visa to Europe’s Schengen area are rejected — the highest refusal rate of any region – according to Henley & Partners.

Citizens of the 26 member States within Europe’s Schengen area have unhindered borderless access within the area, while most travellers from elsewhere require visas. That’s despite the continent submitting the lowest number of applications per capita.

Read: What visa-free stay in S. Africa means for Kenyans

In America, West, Central and Northern Africans were reported to have the highest visa rejection rate.

The report shows that, since 2015, with the exception of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho, the issuing of visas to African students has been on a steady decline, peaking at the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, when a denial rate of 61 percent was recorded.

“Nearly 60 percent of all students from African countries who applied to study at universities in the United States last year were denied the requisite F-1 visa by the State Department,” the report states.

“With the exception of four countries in southern Africa, Africa has by far the highest visa denial rate than any other world region.”

Visa issuance statistics made publicly available by the US Department of State indicate that 24,676 F-1 visas were issued to Africans in the 2022 financial year. The visa denial rate for Africa during the period was 54 percent.

If this assumption of a 54 percent F-1 visa denial rate is applied, this would mean that potentially 28,967 African students were rejected for an F-1 Visa in 2022 alone. In 2023, African and Asian nations saw denial rate increase of 10 percent or higher were all located. Africa had the highest rate, at 57 percent, of rejected applicants.

Further, when Southern Africa is removed from the equation -- due to its historically low visa denial rates -- the number of visas issued drops to 22,612 and the denial rate jumps to 57 percent, suggesting that most of the “missed opportunity” 28,967 African students were concentrated in other parts of Africa.

When we extrapolate this approach using data from 2018-2021, 92,051 students were potentially eligible to study in the US but could not go.

Read: US scraps interviews for some visa categories in Kenya

Recent data available from MPOWER Financing for international students who obtain financing to study in the US shows a similar pattern.

Of 3,000 students from sub-Saharan Africa admitted for graduate studies to a top US university in 2022, about 60 percent were granted a student visa. This translates into a denial rate of 40 percent, compared with denial rates of 30 percent for India and 10 percent for students from China and Brazil.

It has long been argued that students are denied visas due to a combination of lapses on their part, including being ill-prepared for the visa interview, not being able to demonstrate a strong connection to the homeland, and thus triggering concerns about ineligibility for a non-immigrant F-1 student visa.

Prof Egara Kabaji, a lecturer at Kenya’s Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, said that when a student is denied a visa and yet they qualify to travel to a university abroad, then it is not a matter of academic qualification, it is a diplomatic issue.

“Before you apply for a visa to go and study, you have already received your admission letter to the university, which has to assess your capability that gives you that admission to the university. So, the question we should be asking is: what do the US and Europe fear about us?”

Others are denied for not having adequate funds to support their studies in the US.

“Additionally, concerns have been raised about fraud, but it is important to note that the students are often the victims, rather than perpetrators, of fraud,” the report says.

“For example, high visa denial rates have reportedly resulted in African students falling victim to con schemes by fraudulent actors who offer false guarantees for securing a visa.”

MPOWER reports that first-hand accounts from African students suggest a range of barriers related to the visa interview process.

From securing visa interview slots in the first place to having to travel to a second country due to the unavailability of adequate interview slots in Nigerian cities, and to ultimately being “held to a higher standard by US immigration authorities than their peers from other emerging markets.”

Despite these issues, testimonials from international students and discussion forums of groups that serve international students are rife with concerns that students who have met every admission and financial requirement and are seemingly well-prepared for their high-stakes visa interview are, nonetheless, denied visas.

Higher education officials, who are eager to have these talented students on their campuses, say that it is harder for students in certain countries to acquire a visa. Some students from some African nations, for example, are more likely to receive a student visa when applying in a non-African country, such as Australia, to study in the US.

Overall, international students in US colleges and universities are said to spend up to $38 billion annually in the US economy. The fees paid for the applications are non-refundable, resulting in making African applicants poorer.

In the EU, a 12.5 percent fee increase that took effect on June 11, 2024 increased the cost of a short-term (90 days) visa application to €90 ($97.38), from €80 ($86.56). Now, the European Union will generate millions of euros more from rejected applications.

Prof Kabaji argues that perhaps the reasons African countries are denied visas could be political. He says the changing political patterns of the US and Europe could be contributing significantly to visa denials.

“Could there be a fear that once you accept them then they will not come back and therefore it is an unofficial position as to why they deny them visas? The different political regimes, including the Donald Trump presidency, could have played a role in denying most Africans visas. America under Trump was a very different America and, should he win, visa denial is likely to increase,” Prof Kabaji said.

Africa’s applicants had a 30 percent visa refusal rate in Europe, with states primarily citing “reasonable doubts about the visa applicants’ intention to return home” in their rejections.

The researchers argued the European visa system “clearly demonstrates apparent bias against African applicants,” despite justifications based on security or economic concerns.