African migrants to the global North are unusually well educated. In 2000, while the continent’s proportion of skilled workers was only 4%, 30.9% of all immigrants from the continent were skilled workers. In other words, the ‘brain drain’ is exceptionally severe for Africa. For example, the African born population in the U.S. currently claims the highest levels of education of any group in the country, foreign born or native born. In 2000, among the African-born residents aged 25 and above, 49.3 per cent had a bachelor’s degree or more as compared to 25.6 per cent for the native born population and 25.8 per cent for the foreign born population as a whole. The irony of people from the least educated continent in the world having the highest levels of education in the world’s richest country is quite striking.