We list 11 undergraduate Scholarships Open to Nigerian Students in the United States, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 5 of them are fully funded. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
Written from the 11 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This page collects 11 undergraduate scholarships in the United States that are open to Nigerian students. Every award here is at bachelors level, and every one of the 11 is open to Nigerian applicants. That is not a marketing line: the brief behind this page records that none of the 11 names Nigeria or the West African region as a restriction, and none of the 11 carries a nationality restriction at all. In other words, the eligibility question is not whether you are Nigerian. It is whether your results, your English test and your documents arrive on time.
Five of the 11 are labelled Fully Funded. The remaining six do not state their funding position either way, so this page does not claim anything about what they cover. Where an award says in writing what it pays for, that is reported below as what the award states, not as a promise.
The providers represented include Clark University, Cornell University, Boston University, Berea College, the ACI Foundation and the Future Leaders Foundation. The named awards on the page include:
Six providers are named across the collection, and the awards are spread across a range of subjects rather than clustered in one faculty.
Of the 11 awards, four state that they cover tuition and two state that they cover research or training costs. Those are the benefits the awards name in their own text. They are not a statement that every other award pays nothing — it means the page cannot tell you what those awards cover, and neither should anyone else.
Five awards are labelled Fully Funded. If your family is funding your application from Nigeria, the practical question is not the label but the line items: tuition, living costs, health insurance, flights and the annual renewal conditions. Read the award page for each one you shortlist and write down exactly which of those it names. Where the brief is silent, treat it as unknown until you have the award's own wording in front of you.
Duration is stated for some awards as 4 years, and one as 4 years (8 semesters). One award notes a duration of four years or longer depending on the major. A US bachelors degree normally runs four years, so a scholarship that renews annually for that period is worth far more than a one-off grant, even where the headline figure looks smaller.
Yes, on nationality. All 11 awards are open to Nigerian students, and none of them names Nigeria or the region as a condition. What varies is everything else.
The pathway into this level is straightforward: you have finished secondary school, and you hold WAEC, NECO, NABTEB or SSCE results. These are scholarships for a first degree, so most will ask for your senior secondary results and an admission offer from the university. Each award page quotes its own entry requirement, and you should read that page rather than assume.
Nigeria is not a marginal presence in US higher education. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 16,632 Nigerian students were studying in the United States in 2023, placing Nigeria second among sending countries. You are applying into a well-worn path, not an exotic one.
The single most common requirement is an English test. Seven of the 11 awards state that they ask for an IELTS or TOEFL score. That is the item most likely to delay a Nigerian application, because test dates fill up and results take time to reach the universities.
Beyond the English test, the requirements thin out sharply:
Those counts are small because most undergraduate awards at this level lean on your secondary school record and your admission application rather than on a separate eligibility checklist. Do not read the low counts as an absence of requirements. Read them as a signal that the academic transcript, the admission offer and the test score carry most of the weight.
Budget for the paperwork. Transcripts from your school, WAEC or NECO result verification, courier fees to the United States and test registration all cost money before any scholarship decision is made. Start those in the month you decide to apply, not the week the deadline falls.
Three of the 11 awards carry a stated date and are still open. Eight are undated on the page, and three of the 11 run on a recurring cycle. The busiest months across the collection are December, November and April, one award each.
The three closing soonest are:
Two of those three fall in the same window as US admission deadlines, which is not a coincidence. Several awards on this page are tied to admission: Clark University lists November 01, 2026 and January 15, 2027, Cornell lists January 2, 2027 and October 1, 2026, and Berea College lists November 01, 2025, January 31, 2026 and March 31. Where an award is tied to admission, the scholarship deadline and the admission deadline are effectively the same date. Miss one and you have missed both.
Work in this order. First, confirm you have your WAEC, NECO, NABTEB or SSCE results and order the transcripts and verification you will need, because those take the longest from Nigeria. Second, book your IELTS or TOEFL date, since seven of the 11 awards ask for a score. Third, shortlist three or four awards from the list above rather than all 11, and read each award page for its own entry requirement, its duration and what it says it covers.
Then check the deadline against the admission deadline for the same university. If they match, you have one date to meet, not two. If the award is undated on this page, go to the award page and look for the current cycle before you plan around it.
Finally, treat the funding label as a starting point. Five awards here are Fully Funded and four state that they cover tuition, but the only description that matters is the one on the award's own page, in its own words, for the year you are applying.
Studying in the United States is a dream for many international students due to its world-class universities, cutting-edge research opportunities, and global recognition. However, the high cost of tuition, living expenses, and travel can be a significant hurdle. Fortunately, a wide range of fully funded and partially funded scholarships are available specifically for international students, offered by US universities, government initiatives, and private organizations. These programs can cover tuition fees, living stipends, health insurance, and even airfare, depending on the scholarship type. Below is a comprehensive list of the top 10 scholarships in the USA for international students for 2026–2027, including opportunities for undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs. By applying to these scholarships, you can access world-class education while minimizing financial burdens and focusing on academic and professional growth.
*UNESCO Institute for Statistics, inbound internationally mobile students from Nigeria, 2023.
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