We list 12 fully Funded 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. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
Written from the 12 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This collection gathers 12 fully funded scholarships in the United States that are open to Nigerian students. Every award here is labelled fully funded by the provider, and every one of the 12 is open to Nigerian applicants. None of them names Nigeria or the African region as a restricted nationality, and none carries a nationality restriction at all. The 12 sit in one country, the United States, which keeps the comparison simple: you are looking at American institutions and American funders, and the differences between them lie in level, field and what the award actually pays for.
Nigeria is the second-largest source of international students in the United States, with 16,632 students recorded in 2023, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. That number matters less as a statistic than as a signal. Nigerian applicants are not a novelty on these campuses, and the admissions and funding offices you will write to have seen WAEC, NECO, B.Sc and HND documents before.
The list is spread across the full academic ladder rather than concentrated at one point.
Those counts overlap, because a single award can fund more than one level. The ACI Foundation Scholarship, for instance, is listed for undergraduate, masters, PhD and postdoctoral study. So the 12 awards do not divide neatly into 12 separate levels. If you have just finished your first degree and you are weighing a masters against a direct PhD, both routes exist here. If you are still at secondary school, there is one award at that level, and it is worth reading on its own terms rather than assuming it works like the postgraduate ones.
Social Sciences appears most often, attached to 3 awards, followed by Arts & Humanities, Business & Management, Law, and Medicine & Health Sciences at 2 each. Computer Science & IT, Education, Engineering and Natural Sciences each appear once. Again, awards overlap across fields, so these are not exclusive categories. The practical reading: this is not a science-only or a humanities-only list. A law graduate and an engineering graduate both have something to open. The single-award fields are thinner, so if your subject is Computer Science, Education, Engineering or Natural Sciences, expect fewer options and plan to apply to more than one.
Fully funded is a label, and labels vary. What matters is what each award states in its own text.
Read those as what the award documents say, not as a promise that every cost you will face is handled. Tuition is the most commonly named benefit; health insurance the least. Where an award names tuition and living costs but not travel, the flight is a real line in your budget, and you should price it before you accept anything. Some awards also state a duration. Among the durations recorded here are 2 years, 4 years, and 4 years or longer depending on the major, and one programme funds up to a stated point in a scholar's studies. Check the duration on the award page itself, because a funding promise that covers two years does not cover a four-year programme.
The requirements are ordinary for American funding, which means they are document-heavy and slow.
Two things follow from this. First, the English test is the single most common gate. If you have not booked IELTS or TOEFL, that is your first task, not your last, because the score has to exist before you can submit. Second, seven awards want recommendation letters, which means you need referees who will actually write and submit on time. Ask early, give them your CV and your statement, and follow up without apology. The degree class requirement appears on only 2 awards, so a 2:2 does not automatically close this list, but where a class is stated, it is stated for a reason. The one award asking for a commitment to return home is worth noting if you have plans to stay on in the United States after your programme.
Five awards carry a specific date. Seven are undated on the page, and five recur annually. That mix means you cannot treat this list as a single application season. The busiest months are October, with 2 deadlines, then September and November with 1 each.
The awards closing soonest are:
Two of these sit within days of each other in October, which is the crunch point. If you are aiming at both, the documents have to be ready before the month begins. The June and September dates give you room, but room is not the same as time; transcripts, courier fees and referee chasers all take longer from Nigeria than applicants expect.
The providers on this list include Stanford University, Harvard University, Clark University, Berea College, and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, alongside USA Universities and Academic Institutions as a general provider. The Fulbright Scholarship 2026-2027 USA (Fully Funded) sits under that general heading and is listed for masters and PhD study. A named university award and a national programme like Fulbright are not the same animal: one is decided inside a single institution, the other often runs through a binational process. Treat the application mechanics as separate even when the funding looks similar.
Start with the two October deadlines, because they are the ones you can still act on. Open the Stanford and Stigler pages, read the eligibility wording line by line, and note exactly what each asks for. Then work backwards: book your English test if you do not have a score, request your transcripts, and approach your referees with a deadline you have set yourself, not the one the provider set.
After that, read the remaining awards on the list at your own level. If you are an undergraduate, look at the 5 Bachelors awards. If you already hold a masters, the 5 PhD awards and 4 fellowships are where your file is competitive. Where a deadline is undated, go to the award page and confirm the cycle before you spend money on a courier. And where an award names tuition but not living costs or travel, budget the gap honestly before you commit.
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.
A browser notification when a scholarship you can apply for is added or about to close. No account needed.
