We list 8 fully Funded Masters Scholarships for Nigerian Students in Australia, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 5 state eligibility that includes Nigerian applicants. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
Written from the 8 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This page collects 8 fully funded masters scholarships in Australia open to Nigerian students. Every award here is labelled fully funded, and every one is at masters level. That is the whole of the list: no partially funded awards, no undergraduate awards, no PhD-only awards.
It is a small list, and it is small for a reason. Australian postgraduate funding is concentrated in a handful of universities, and most of it is attached to research degrees rather than taught ones. The 8 awards here are the ones that carry a full funding label and admit masters students.
If you are weighing Australia against other destinations, this page tells you what Australia actually offers at this level, what the awards say they pay for, and what they ask you to submit.
The providers are a short list of Australian institutions.
Monash carries the largest share. The award listed under participating Australian institutions is the Australia Awards Scholarships, which is not tied to a single campus.
These are the benefits named in the awards' own text. They are what the award states, not a promise about your particular offer letter.
Read that list carefully. Living costs appear more often than tuition does, which is unusual if you are used to scholarship pages built around fee waivers. It reflects the fact that many of these awards sit on top of a research training scheme, where the tuition component is handled separately from the stipend.
Where an award names a stipend figure in its own text, that figure is on the individual scholarship page. Rates of this kind are commonly indexed, so the number you see may be adjusted before your year of entry.
Of the 8 awards on this page, 5 are open to Nigerian applicants. Of those 5, 1 names Nigeria or the region in its eligibility text, and 4 carry no nationality restriction at all.
For the remaining 3, eligibility is not stated on the award itself. That does not mean you are excluded, and it does not mean you are included. It means the award page does not settle the question, and you would need to check with the university.
Nigeria is not an unusual applicant country for Australia. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics records 2,385 Nigerian students in Australia in 2024, the 7th largest group in the country. That is context, not a qualification — it tells you there is a settled pathway, not that any individual award favours you.
The pathway into this level is a first degree or an HND. The qualifications in play are B.Sc, B.A, B.Eng, LLB, MBBS and HND. Both taught and research masters are represented on this page.
On the requirements the awards state in writing:
Where an award asks for a minimum class, the wording you will see is usually "upper second". On a Nigerian transcript that corresponds to Second Class Upper (2:1). If your result slip says 2:1, you meet that wording. If it says Second Class Lower, you do not, and no amount of supporting documentation changes it.
Whether an HND is accepted at this level is decided by each university, not by this page. If you hold an HND, that is the first question to put to the admissions office before you spend money on a transcript or a courier.
Three awards ask for a research proposal. That is a substantial document, and it usually has to align with a supervisor who has already agreed to take you. Start it early.
Five of the 8 awards carry a date. Five are still open at the time of writing. Three are undated, and five recur annually, which means a deadline you have missed this year will come round again.
The busiest months are:
October is where the pressure sits. Two of the awards closing soonest are Monash awards with a 31 October deadline, both currently showing 23 days left:
The rest of the near-term calendar:
One further Monash award on the list, Monash University Scholarship 2026-2027 (Fully Funded), does not carry a fixed date on this page.
Duration matters when you are planning money and leave from work. Where the awards state a duration, a masters by research runs for 2 years. A PhD runs for 3.5 years with no extension available, which is a firm boundary worth knowing if you are considering staying on after the masters.
The awards on this page are spread across these subject areas:
Engineering and medicine and health sciences carry the most, which fits the research-heavy character of Australian postgraduate funding. If your field is law, education, economics or social sciences, the list is thinner and you should expect to apply more selectively.
Start with the two Monash awards closing on 31 October. If you are reading this close to that date, the practical question is whether you already have a supervisor and a research proposal in hand. If you do not, 23 days is not enough time to produce one, and your effort belongs on the April, August and October deadlines further out.
Work in this order. Confirm your degree class against the "upper second" wording before anything else, because it decides whether an award is worth your time. If you hold an HND, email the university and ask directly whether it is accepted at masters level. Then settle your English test position — two awards state a score requirement, and the rest may handle it at university level, which is a question for the admissions office rather than this page.
Budget for the paperwork. Transcripts, courier fees and test fees come out of your pocket before any award decision is made, and none of the 8 awards here reimburses application costs.
Finally, note that 5 of these awards recur. A missed October deadline is not a closed door; it is a date on next year's calendar. Read each individual scholarship page for the terms in full, since the funding labels and requirement counts on this page summarise what the awards say, and the award text is what governs.
Australia remains one of the most sought-after study destinations for Nigerian students — known for its high-ranking universities, multicultural campuses, and globally recognized degrees. Yet, the cost of studying abroad often becomes a significant barrier for many deserving students.
Fortunately, numerous fully funded and partially funded scholarships are available specifically for Nigerian students, covering everything from tuition fees and living expenses to travel and health insurance. These opportunities aim to attract talented individuals and support their academic, professional, and personal growth in Australia.
In this comprehensive guide, we've curated the Top 10 Scholarships in Australia for Nigerian Students for 2026. These include generous government-funded programs like the Australia Awards Scholarships, as well as merit-based and research-focused grants offered by top institutions such as the University of Melbourne, Monash University, and the University of Sydney.
Whether you're pursuing an undergraduate degree, a Master’s, or a PhD, these scholarships can significantly reduce your financial burden — and even provide long-term pathways to career development or migration.
Let’s explore the best scholarship options that can turn your dream of studying in Australia into reality.
*UNESCO Institute for Statistics, inbound internationally mobile students from Nigeria, 2024.
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