International Masters Funding – Your 2024 Calendar

Finding funding can be one of the trickiest parts of a Masters application. There’s plenty of it out there, but different scholarships have different deadlines and requirements. Trying to stay on top of them all can quickly become confusing – particularly if you’re busy with other parts of your application.

That’s where this blog comes in.

As the new year begins, we’ve picked out some of the most important sources of funding and created an application timeline for 2024. By reading this post you’ll know when the deadlines are coming up and will be able to give yourself plenty of time to prepare.

Most of what we’ve covered here is funding for international students, but we’ve also mentioned the main deadlines for UK and EU applicants.

The British Council offers a range of government scholarsips worth at least £10,000 for international students to study a Masters in the UK.

Separate GREAT Scholarship schemes are available for students from Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ghana, Greece, Kenya, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. Applications are managed by universities and each has a certain number of scholarships for the 2024-25 academic year. Institutions also set their own deadlines, but most are between March and June.

US students

Just for citizens of the USA looking to study abroad in the UK, the Marshall Scholarships are a long running (post)graduate funding programme. They’re designed to pick out scholars with the potential to become future leaders and ambassadors.

Applications open in late spring and will need to be made through your university by the October at the very latest (though you should really aim to have your application ready earlier than this).

The Fulbright Awards are a long-running scholarship competition that supports UK students to study abroad in the USA and vice versa. The deadlines for UK and US applicants differ slightly. Application for UK students usually close in May whereas for US students have till October. These deadlines are both for degree programmes starting in the following year. This means in 2024, you can apply for programmes starting in the 2025-26 academic year.

To give you an idea of deadlines, you can view last year's timeline for UK students here and for US students here.

International students

The Commonwealth Masters Scholarships are one of two prestigious funding schemes offered by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

The Commonwealth Scholarships are available to international students from select members of the Commonwealth of Nations. Separate awards are offered to citizens of high income or low and middle income countries, but all provide generous funding for fees, living costs, travel and other expenses.

International students

The Saïd Foundation supports students from Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Syria to study in the UK on one-year Masters courses. Applications usually open in late August or early September and close at the very end of October or beginning of November.

International students

The Chevening Scholarships provide full tuition and generous maintenance support to ambitious international Masters students.

Applications usually open early September, but the latest you can apply will be November of the previous to when you want to start your degree. Of course, as with most of the scholarships covered on this page, you’ll want to spend as much time as possible on your application.

For more information, you can read our full guide to the Chevening Scholarships, or check out a previous student's application tips here on the blog!

UK students

Applications for the UK postgraduate loans normally open in June or July, but there’s no deadline before your course starts (in fact, you can actually apply during your Masters).

You’ll usually need to be a UK student in order to get a UK Masters loan, but some exceptions may be made for students from other countries, so it’s worth checking to see if you could be eligible!

All students

We’ve covered some of the biggest sources of international funding here, but there are a huge number of other organisations offering scholarships, bursaries and other awards for postgraduate study. It’s definitely worth doing some research and including them in your funding search.

You can also look at our full guide to international Masters funding. It covers everything on this page in a bit more detail, plus lots of targeted awards for students from specific countries.

Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for regular updates about funding news and other information. We’ll remind you when these deadlines are coming up and provide additional information, advice and student success stories to help with your application.

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