Find Your Scholarship

You apply directly to the body giving the money — never through an agent, and never through us. The usual order catches people out: pick your course first, then apply for scholarships that fund it. Most fully funded scholarships want proof you have a university place, or at least an application already in progress.

Start your course applications several months before the scholarship deadline. Chevening, for instance, wants an unconditional offer in hand by July.

Look at the badge on each card. We work it out from today’s date, so any scholarship available now is marked open, and a closed one tells you which month it reopens. Nothing here is a stale list from three years ago.

Yes — people use both, along with “international scholarship” and “overseas scholarship”, for the same thing: money from a government, university or foundation to study outside your own country.

The distinction that actually matters is fully funded versus partial. A partial award might waive 20% of tuition and leave you to find rent, flights and the rest. Everything on this page is fully funded.

None are easy, but some are far less crowded. Erasmus Mundus has no nationality restriction and dozens of separate programmes, each with its own selection. MEXT and the Global Korea Scholarship run country quotas, so your competition is other applicants from your country rather than the whole world.

Gates Cambridge and Rhodes are the opposite — famous, and brutally competitive.

One: shortlist courses you meet the entry requirements for. Two: check which of the twelve awards funds that country and level. Three: get your references and transcripts translated early — this is what delays most people. Four: write the application around what you will do after the degree, not what you have done. Five: submit well before the deadline, because the portals fall over on the last day.

There are scholarships for students at every level here, but almost all of them assume you already have a course in mind.

Yes, though it shortens the list. Chevening and DAAD both want two years of work behind you. Full scholarships for international students that ask for none include the Global Korea Scholarship, MEXT in Japan, Erasmus Mundus in Europe and Gates Cambridge.

Our eligibility check filters on exactly this, so you see only what you qualify for.

Fewer than for postgraduates, and that is worth knowing early — most of the big money goes to masters and PhD study. Scholarships for college students doing a first degree here are the Global Korea Scholarship, MEXT, Australia Awards, Manaaki New Zealand and the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program.