We list 9 scholarships Open to Nigerian Students in China, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 9 of them are fully funded. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
Written from the 9 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 6 min read.
This page collects 9 scholarships in China that are open to Nigerian students. Every one of the nine is labelled fully funded by the award itself, and every one is open at master's level. Seven also take doctoral applicants, and six accept undergraduates. So whether you are finishing a B.Sc or HND and looking for a taught master's, or you already hold an M.Sc and want a PhD, there is something here for you.
None of the nine names Nigeria as a condition of eligibility, and none of the nine carries a nationality restriction. That is the useful part: the awards are open to international applicants generally, which is why they appear on a page filtered for Nigerian students. You are not competing for a Nigeria-only slot. You are applying into an international pool.
The providers on this list are a mix of individual universities and city or municipal government schemes. Peking University appears through the Yenching Academy. Tsinghua University hosts the Schwarzman Scholars Program. Nankai University carries the Tianjin Government Scholarship. Qingdao University and Yangzhou University each run their own. There is also a listing that gathers scholarships across Shanghai universities and another that gathers them across Beijing universities, so if you are set on a particular city rather than a particular institution, those two are worth opening first.
This matters for how you apply. A university-run scholarship usually means you deal with one admissions office, one portal and one set of documents. A city or government scheme may route through a host university that nominates you, which adds a step. Read the individual page before you assume which one you are dealing with.
All nine are labelled fully funded. Beyond that label, the awards describe their benefits in their own wording, and the counts below are simply how many of the nine mention each item in writing.
Treat these as what the award text states, not as a promise that every cost you will face is covered. Tuition and a monthly stipend are the usual core. Where an award does not name travel, assume you are paying for your own flight unless the page says otherwise. Two awards on this list do name travel, and one names research or training costs, so if either of those is the deciding factor for you, filter on it early rather than after you have written three essays.
The requirements below are counted from what the awards themselves state. They are the practical shape of the work ahead.
Two things follow from this. First, recommendation letters are the single most common requirement, so line up your referees before anything else. Give them your CV, your transcript and a short note on what you are applying for. A referee who has to guess what you want will write a vague letter. Second, an English test score is asked for by five of the nine, which means four do not state it as a requirement. If you are applying from Nigeria and your degree was taught in English, check the individual page before you pay for an IELTS or TOEFL slot. Some awards accept a medium-of-instruction letter instead. Do not assume; read the page.
The research proposal appears in three awards, and those will almost certainly be the doctoral or research-heavy routes. If you are applying at PhD level, budget real time for this document. A proposal written in one evening reads like one.
Six of the nine carry a stated date, and all six of those are still open as this page is written. Three are undated, which usually means the award runs on a recurring cycle rather than a single fixed closing date; six of the nine are marked as recurring. The busiest month by closing date is May, with three awards. April and December each carry one.
The five closing soonest are:
The Yenching Academy deadline is the one to look at first if you are ready to apply this cycle. The others give you more room, but "more room" in a Chinese scholarship cycle still means months, not weeks, once you factor in transcripts, courier time and referee follow-up.
Two of the nine state how many places they offer. The Qingdao University Scholarship states 20 places at PhD level and 10 at master's level. The Schwarzman Scholars Program states up to 140. Those are the only award counts on the page, so read them as the scale of the individual programme rather than as a total across this list.
Durations vary by level and by award. Where stated, a master's runs two years, a PhD three years, and a bachelor's degree programme between four and six years depending on the award. One award gives a bachelor's programme as four to five years and a master's separately. Plan your funding around the longer end of these ranges, not the shorter one.
The awards span a broad set of disciplines. Arts and humanities, business and management, and economics and finance are each represented by four awards. Agriculture, education, engineering, law, and medicine and health sciences each appear in three. Public policy and development, and social sciences, each appear in one.
If your background is in engineering, agriculture or health sciences, you have several routes here. If you are coming from law or education, the same applies. If your interest is public policy or social sciences, the list is thinner, so apply carefully and read the eligibility wording on the single relevant award before you commit to it.
Start with the closing date that is nearest to you, not the award that sounds most prestigious. Open the Yenching Academy page if December is within reach. If not, work backwards from the April and May deadlines and give yourself at least two months for documents.
Order your transcripts early. In Nigeria, transcript requests from many universities take weeks, and courier delivery to China adds more. Request your NYSC discharge certificate, your degree certificate and your transcript in the same batch so you are not making a second trip. Ask your referees now, and send them the link to the award so they can see what is being asked of you.
Then read each award page in full. The counts on this page tell you what is common across the nine. The individual page tells you what that one award will actually require of you, and that is the document that decides your application.
Studying in China has become an increasingly attractive option for Nigerian students seeking quality education, advanced research opportunities, and cultural exchange in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. With strong diplomatic ties between Pakistan and China, numerous fully funded scholarships are available each year through government and university-sponsored programs. These scholarships cover tuition fees, accommodation, monthly living stipends, and even airfare, making higher education in China not only accessible but highly affordable for talented international students. Below is a list of the top fully funded scholarships in China specifically available to international applicants.
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