We list 10 fully Funded Social Sciences Scholarships for Nigerian Students, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. Most are held in the United States (4), Australia (1) and China (1). 6 state eligibility that includes Nigerian applicants. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
These awards do not restrict the field of study, so social sciences applicants can apply too.
Written from the 10 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This page collects 10 fully funded social sciences scholarships open to Nigerian students. Every award here is labelled fully funded by the provider, so the funding question is settled before you start reading individual pages. What is not settled is level, country and what each award actually pays for. Those differ, and they are the things worth checking first.
The awards are spread across seven countries. The United States carries the largest share with 4. Australia, China, the Netherlands, Qatar, Romania and Switzerland each carry 1. Providers named in the listings include Stanford University, Harvard University, Peking University, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the University of Groningen and a group of participating Australian institutions.
Level matters more than country here, because the same page serves applicants at very different stages. Of the 10 awards:
Those figures overlap, which is why they add up to more than 10. A single award can fund both a master's and a doctorate, and several here do. If you hold a B.Sc or HND and are looking for a taught master's abroad, the Masters group is your starting point. If you already have an M.Sc and a supervisor in mind, work from the PhD group instead.
The two Bachelors awards and the single High School award are worth noting for a different reason: they are the only entries on this page that do not assume a completed degree. The Postdoctoral entry sits at the opposite end and assumes a doctorate already awarded.
Fully funded is a label, not a breakdown. The individual award pages are more specific, and this is what they state in their own text:
Read that as what the providers have written down, not as a promise that every award pays all six. An award that names tuition and living costs but says nothing about travel is not necessarily withholding it — it simply has not stated it. Where an award does not spell out a benefit, treat it as unknown until you have asked the provider directly.
Where the brief records a duration, it appears as 2 years, 1 to 2 years, or a master's programme of 1.5 or 2 years depending on the award. One entry, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, funds up to the first two years. Check the length against your own plan before you commit to a timeline.
This is the question most applicants ask first, and the honest answer is that it varies by award. Of the 10 listings, 6 show that Nigerians may apply. Within that group, 1 names Nigeria or the region explicitly, and 5 carry no nationality restriction at all. For the remaining 4, eligibility is not stated on the award page.
That last group is not a rejection. It means the listing does not say one way or the other, so the only way to know is to read the provider's own eligibility rules or write to them. Do that before you spend money on transcripts or a courier.
Where an award is open to Nigerians without a named restriction, the practical barriers shift from nationality to documentation. That is where the next section matters.
Across the 10 awards, the stated requirements are:
Letters of recommendation appear on almost every award, so treat them as the default rather than a surprise. Approach your referees early. A Nigerian lecturer writing a reference for a student applying abroad is doing you a favour on top of their own teaching load, and they will need your CV, your statement and the deadline in writing.
Only 4 awards state an English test requirement in their own text. That does not mean the other 6 waive it — it means the listing does not say. Some providers accept a degree taught in English as evidence, and some do not. Confirm with the institution rather than assuming a waiver.
Two awards ask for a research proposal. Those are the ones to start on months ahead, not weeks. One award requires a minimum degree class, and one expects relevant work experience. One requires you to hold an admission offer before you apply for the funding — a sequencing trap that catches applicants who apply for money first.
Nine of the 10 awards carry a date, and all nine are still open at the time of writing. Nine are recurring, meaning they run again in later cycles if you miss this one. One award is undated.
The busiest months are October with 2 deadlines, December with 2, and April with 1. The awards closing soonest are:
One further award sits beyond that window: the Jefferson Scholars Foundation National Fellowship 2026-2027 USA, which closes 1 February.
Two October deadlines in the same fortnight is tight if you are starting from nothing. If you cannot assemble a full application in time, the December pair gives you a more realistic run at it, and the January and February dates after that.
Start with level, not country. Decide whether you are applying for a master's, a doctorate or a fellowship, then filter this list down to the awards that match. That alone will cut the 10 to a handful.
For each shortlisted award, open the individual page and answer four questions in writing: does it state that Nigerians may apply, what does it say it covers, what documents does it ask for, and when does it close. If eligibility is not stated, email the provider before you spend a naira on transcripts, courier fees or an English test.
Then work backwards from the deadline. Recommendation letters take the longest to arrange because they depend on someone else's time. Research proposals take the second longest because they depend on your thinking. Order your transcripts early — Nigerian universities are not fast, and a courier delay in the final week is not a valid excuse to an admissions committee.
Nine of these awards recur, so a missed deadline is a delay rather than a dead end. Pick the ones you can genuinely complete, and apply properly to those.
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