Which Fully Funded Scholarships for Africans Are Open Right Now

On 26 July 2026 we opened the official page for twelve scholarship programmes that appear on almost every “fully funded scholarships for African students” list in circulation. Two were taking applications. One more opens in nine days, one opens in October. The other eight were shut — several since spring, one since December.

A programme that closed in April is not an opportunity. It is a calendar entry for next year, and the lists that keep republishing it are counting on you not checking. This one is short because checking is what produced it. Each entry says what the funder’s own site confirms, what it does not, and the date that actually matters.

Method, since it decides how much to trust this: we read cscuk.fcdo.gov.uk, daad.de, gov.uk, the European Commission’s Erasmus+ portal, australiaawardsafrica.org and Cambridge’s Mastercard Foundation site directly, and recorded only what those pages state. Anything taken from secondary reporting is labelled in the text. Several official sites blocked or timed out on our requests; where that happened it is flagged in place. Programmes we could not confirm stayed in the list marked unconfirmed, because knowing a window is shut is as useful as knowing one is open.

The status board

DAAD EPOS, open now

Germany’s Development-Related Postgraduate Courses (EPOS) programme has a live window as you read this, and Nigerians under-apply to it badly relative to the UK routes.

DAAD pays master’s scholars €992 per month, with doctoral candidates on a higher rate that was revised upward in early 2026 — the current figure is on the database entry linked above and is the one to check, since it moves. The monthly payment also comes with health, accident and personal liability insurance and a travel allowance, unless your home country covers the flight. Rent subsidies and family allowances exist in some circumstances.

The eligibility bar is different from Chevening‘s and this is where people disqualify themselves without realising:

• At least two years’ professional experience after your first degree.
• Your degree should normally be no more than six years old. This one quietly rules out a lot of applicants who finished NYSC a decade ago.
• You must not have been resident in Germany for longer than 15 months at the application deadline.

There is no single DAAD application. You apply to the university running the postgraduate course, and each course sets its own deadline — which is why the 2027/28 dates spread across roughly August to October 2026 rather than landing on one day. Pull the current course list from the DAAD scholarship database and work backwards from the specific deadline of the two or three programmes you actually want.

Chevening opens in nine days, and one date going round is wrong

Chevening applications for the 2027/28 UK academic year are reported to open on 4 August 2026 and close on 6 October 2026 at 11:00 UTC. We could not load chevening.org directly during this check — the site timed out repeatedly on our end — so treat those dates as strong but unconfirmed and verify them on the official application timeline before you build a schedule around them.

Now the stale date. The gov.uk news page for Chevening still carries a 15 November deadline. Where a government press page and a programme’s own site disagree, the programme site wins — and three aggregator sites republished the gov.uk figure as current this month alone.

What disqualifies Nigerian applicants is rarely academic. It is the work-experience threshold: an undergraduate degree at UK postgraduate entry standard, typically a 2:1 equivalent, plus documented hours. Start compiling those by employer now, not in October when the form asks.

Commonwealth is closed — read it anyway

The Commonwealth Master’s Scholarship is the most generous UK award on this list and the one people most often apply for the wrong way round.

What it pays, confirmed on the CSC’s own page: £1,452 per month, or £1,781 per month at universities in the London metropolitan area. Tuition is covered in full by agreement between the CSC and the university. You get approved airfare from your home country to the UK and back, a warm clothing allowance, a study travel grant, and a child allowance if applicable. You need a first degree of at least upper second-class (2:1) honours standard and you must show you cannot afford UK study otherwise.

The 2026/27 round is closed; nominations went in by December 2025 and results are due by July 2026. But the structural point survives the deadline: you cannot apply directly to the CSC. Applications go through CSC Central and through a national nominating agency or an approved NGO or university. In Nigeria that nominating body is the Federal Scholarship Board at the Federal Ministry of Education, which runs its own advert, its own deadline and its own interview panel — for the last cycle, applications through the Board ran in September–October, with interviews in early November, well before the CSC’s own December cutoff.

Miss the Nigerian nomination window and your CSC Central application goes nowhere, no matter how good it is. Watch education.gov.ng from late August.

There is no central Mastercard Foundation application

The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program is not one scholarship. It is funding placed with more than sixty partner institutions, each running its own selection on its own calendar. Anyone advertising a single Mastercard Foundation application link is wrong, and usually collecting your email.

At Cambridge, the confirmed criteria are: you must be from and living in an African country — temporary residence abroad for study or work is fine — hold a bachelor’s degree, and meet the entry standard for your specific course, which is a UK first or a 2:1 equivalent depending on the programme. Any full-time master’s qualifies except the Master of Accountancy, the MBA, the Master of Corporate Law and the Master of Finance. Selection weighs demonstrated commitment to giving back to your community or country, and to sustainability and climate resilience.

Crucially, the scholarship deadline is the course deadline. Cambridge master’s courses close between October and December for the following October start, so this is live work right now. Start from the Foundation’s partner list and go to each institution’s own page.

Erasmus Mundus, and the stipend nobody can source

The European Commission’s official page confirms the programme is open to students from anywhere in the world and that applications normally run October to January for the following academic year. Scholarships cover participation costs plus a contribution to travel, visa and living costs.

What that page does not publish is a monthly figure, so this article does not carry one either. The “€1,400 per month” you have seen quoted everywhere traces to aggregators, not to the Commission. Each consortium sets its own amount and publishes it on its own site. Go to the specific programme.

Programmes we are correcting, not just listing

Australia Awards Africa. Nigeria is eligible, but the 2027 intake is closed — the official apply page states plainly that the 2028 intake opens in February 2027. The published requirements are unusually restrictive: a minimum age of 25 at the intake date, roughly five years of post-graduate work experience in your field of study, and employment at the time of applying. If you are a fresh graduate, this is not your route.

Fulbright, in Nigeria. This is the biggest correction on the page. The Fulbright Foreign Student Program is administered country by country by binational commissions or US embassies, and requirements “vary widely by country.” The award as advertised by the US Mission in Nigeria is aimed at candidates already at least two years into a doctoral programme at a Nigerian university or research institute — it is a doctoral research award for academic staff development, not a general fully funded master’s. The embassy page was returning an error during our check, so confirm the current terms directly with the Public Affairs Section before assuming either way.

Swedish Institute and MEXT. Both closed. SISGP requires 3,000 hours of documented work experience from no more than three employers, which is a genuine filter, and its 2027/28 dates are not yet published on si.se. Japan’s MEXT embassy-recommendation route for 2027 is marked closed on the Embassy of Japan in Nigeria site. Both of those pages blocked our automated request, so we are reporting the status we could see in the pages’ own titles and search listings rather than from a full read. Verify.

Global Korea Scholarship. The 2027 notice has not been issued. Any site publishing 2027 GKS deadlines today is guessing. Watch studyinkorea.go.kr.

What “fully funded” is really saving you

The sum is larger than most applicants assume, and one part of it is not money at all. For a UK master’s outside London, from gov.uk this week:

• Student visa application from outside the UK: £558 (gov.uk Student visa)
• Maintenance you must evidence: £1,171 per month for up to 9 months, so £10,539 outside London or £13,761 in London at £1,529 per month (gov.uk, Money)
• The immigration health surcharge on top, scaling with visa length

The maintenance money has to sit in the account for 28 consecutive days, and the end of that period must fall within 31 days of the application date. Roughly ₦20 million at mid-2026 rates, assembled and then left untouched for a month. For most families that holding requirement, not the admission, is the actual barrier.

Here a government scholarship changes the mechanics rather than merely the cost. Chevening’s own visa guidance confirms the FCDO counts as an official financial sponsor under UK immigration rules, and that a fully funded scholar submits their Final Award Letter as evidence of both fees and maintenance. The 28-day bank statement is skipped entirely. To an applicant whose family cannot park eleven thousand pounds for a month, that exemption is worth more than the stipend.

How to use a short list

Two open programmes, one opening in nine days and one in October is not a poor harvest. It is an accurate one. Four well-built applications to deadlines you have verified yourself will beat thirty scraped from a listicle, most of which closed before you read it.

Bookmark the official pages linked above rather than the aggregators. Deadlines, stipends and eligible-country lists are reviewed annually and they move. Everything here was checked on 26 July 2026; some of it will be wrong by December, and this is money and immigration, so check before you act.