Armstrong Mbi earned his bachelor’s degree in his native Cameroon where, he says, Peace Corps volunteers who had taught him college math and physics inspired him to go abroad to pursue further studies. He applied to schools within driving distance from his brother, who lived in Atlanta and helped him navigate the application process. In 2004 he went to Mississippi State University to pursue a PhD in physics.
Mbi was one of 9622 graduate students in the US from Sub-Saharan Africa that year. Nearly two decades later, there were a record 21 237. Those numbers are from the fall 2023 Open Doors report by the Institute of International Education. The data are not broken down by field, but the report says that “most international scholars” specialize in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. At the University of Arizona, according to Kirsten Limesand, vice provost for graduate education and dean...