We list 17 masters Arts & Humanities Scholarships for Nigerian Students, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 12 of them are fully funded. Most are held in China (4), Australia (3) and the United Kingdom (2). 12 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 arts & humanities applicants can apply too.
Written from the 17 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 4 min read.
This page collects 17 Masters scholarships in Arts & Humanities that are open to Nigerian students. Every award here sits at masters level, and every one falls under the arts and humanities field. Some are taught masters programmes, some carry a research component, and a few are attached to a named academy or institute rather than a single department.
The list is not confined to one destination. It draws from 11 countries, with China carrying the largest share at four awards, Australia next at three, and the United Kingdom at two. Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Qatar, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States each appear once. If you have been told that arts funding abroad means only the UK or the US, this list shows a wider map.
Of the 17 awards, 12 are labelled fully funded and 2 are labelled partially funded. The remaining awards do not label their funding either way, so treat those as unknown until you read the individual award page.
What an award actually pays for varies. Across the list, the benefits named in the awards' own text are:
These are counts of what the awards say in writing, not a promise that every fully funded award covers every line. A "fully funded" label on a scholarship page usually means tuition plus a stipend, but the exact package is set by the provider. Read each award's own terms before you build a budget around it.
For 12 of the 17 awards, a Nigerian applicant may apply. Within that group, 1 award names Nigeria or the region in its eligibility text, and 11 carry no nationality restriction at all. For the other 5 awards, eligibility is not stated on the award page, so you would need to confirm directly with the provider.
The pathway into this level is straightforward. You hold a first degree or HND — B.Sc, B.A, B.Eng, LLB, MBBS or HND. Awards at this level usually state a minimum class of degree, and where an award asks for an "upper second", that corresponds to Second Class Upper (2:1) on a Nigerian transcript. Whether an HND is accepted in place of a degree is decided by each university, not by this page.
If you are still weighing up where arts and humanities funding is thickest, it is worth noting that this field carries 17 awards on our listing, ahead of Engineering at 11 and Business & Management at 8.
The requirements stated by the awards on this list are:
Two things stand out for a Nigerian applicant. First, recommendation letters are the single most requested item, so line up your referees early — a former lecturer and a supervisor or employer is the usual combination. Second, four awards require an admission offer before you can be considered for funding. That reverses the order many people work in: you must apply to the university, secure a place, and then apply for the money. Budget your time accordingly.
Only five awards state an English test requirement. Where a test is not named in the award text, that does not automatically mean a waiver applies — it means the award page does not say. Confirm with the university.
Nine awards carry a stated date and nine are still open. Eight are undated on the page, and nine recur annually, meaning a missed cycle is not necessarily a closed door.
The busiest months are October, with three deadlines, then December and January with two each. The awards closing soonest are:
Note that the Groningen and Chalmers entries are labelled fully funded and partially funded respectively, so read the terms rather than assuming the same package. The Doha Institute for Graduate Studies Scholarship 2026-2027 (Fully Funded) in Qatar also closes 15 January.
China's four awards include the Yenching Academy at Peking University, plus listings tied to Shanghai universities and Beijing universities. Australia's three include Monash. The United Kingdom contributes two, and the remaining eight countries contribute one each.
Six providers are named individually on this page: Queensland University, University of Tasmania, Stanford University, Peking University, Shanghai Universities and Beijing Universities. The rest of the awards come from providers listed on the individual scholarship pages.
Start with the five awards above if you want to work to a near deadline. For each one, open the award page and check three things in this order: whether Nigerians are eligible, what the funding actually covers, and what documents are demanded.
Then work backwards from the deadline. Recommendation letters take the longest to secure because they depend on other people. Transcripts and courier fees cost money and time, so request them before you need them rather than in the week of submission. If an award requires an admission offer first, your university application is the real deadline, not the funding date.
If nothing here fits your subject or your timeline, the wider listing covers other fields and levels, including 7 PhD awards and 6 Bachelors awards in related areas. Arts and humanities funding at masters level is competitive, but 12 of these 17 awards are fully funded and 12 are open to Nigerian applicants. That is a workable starting list.
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