Scholarships to Study in Cyprus for African Students (2027)

Best scholarships to study in Cyprus

Cyprus has no national scholarship foundation for international students. The state’s money reaches them through CyprusAid, run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with individual universities. Cyprus University of Technology awards it as full tuition, a place in a university hall for the whole degree, a monthly stipend, a laptop, and the cost of travel, permits, medical exams and insurance. AUB–Mediterraneo runs its own CyprusAid round on the same lines: full tuition, accommodation, a monthly stipend, and travel and medical insurance. Both closed their 2026/27 rounds in June and July 2026, and neither has published a 2027/28 deadline as of September 2026. These two are the only awards in Cyprus that pay for a whole degree.

The second funded route is Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters, paid by the European Commission and open at any consortium that includes a Cypriot university. Tuition is covered in full, the stipend is €1,400 per month, and the award runs 12, 18 or 24 months (60, 90 or 120 ECTS); the scholarship runs for the full programme duration. It funds master study only.

Everything else is a discount. European University Cyprus, Frederick University, the University of Nicosia, the University of Limassol and Philips University all scale a tuition reduction to your school-leaving grade or your GPA, and several renew it each year if your average holds. UCLan Cyprus applies a bursary automatically and adds merit awards on top. The University of Cyprus covers the second half of a master’s fee once you have paid the first half. Open University of Cyprus reserves one full-tuition place for a candidate selected by the Orthodox Archbishopric of Kenya. The amounts sit on our Cyprus university pages.

The honest point: what tuition really costs without a scholarship

Without an award, Cyprus is a self-funded destination, and the bill depends on which tier you pick. A public bachelor’s costs €6,834 per year, but those degrees are mostly taught in Greek. A public master’s is €5,125 per programme for the whole course. The English-taught private universities, where most African students actually study, charge €8,970–11,520 per year at bachelor’s and €6,237–14,220 per year at master’s. Medicine sits apart at €22,000–23,000 per year. Living costs are the part a percentage discount never touches: €700–1,000 per month nationally, plus insurance at €120–300 per year and, at some universities, per-semester charges of €30–65 per semester. Our cost of studying in Cyprus page has the full breakdown.

Who is eligible from our countries

All nine countries we work with are eligible for Erasmus Mundus, with no exclusions: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Morocco. The rule is Open worldwide with no nationality restriction. No more than 10 per cent of a project's scholarships may go to applicants of one nationality, a cap that excludes the targeted-region top-ups funded from NDICI and IPA III. African applicants are a targeted region for those top-ups: Sub-Saharan Africa takes a reserved share of the NDICI budget, and Neighbourhood South, which covers Egypt and Morocco, takes another.

CyprusAid and the university awards work differently. Neither publishes a country list, so nationality is not the filter — your grades and the university’s own admission decision are. No Cyprus award in our dataset excludes any of our nine origin countries. One runs the other way: the Open University of Cyprus full-tuition place is filled by the Orthodox Archbishopric of Kenya, which makes it a Kenyan route in practice.

The scale is worth knowing before you plan around it. Cyprus hosted 12,499 international students in 2024, of whom 694 were African: 286 Nigerians, 97 South Africans, 63 Egyptians, 37 Kenyans, 26 Ghanaians, 11 Zambians, 10 Zimbabweans and 8 Ugandans. Small cohorts mean few alumni to ask and no scholarship office in Africa to visit.

Fully funded vs partial — know what you are applying for

Two routes are fully funded in the real sense. CyprusAid pays tuition, houses you and adds a monthly stipend. Erasmus Mundus pays tuition in full plus €1,400 per month, and Consortia may charge scholarship holders neither an application fee nor tuition fees or other mandatory participation costs.

Everything else is partial, and partial means tuition only. A merit discount does not pay rent of €250–500 per month in Nicosia or €400–600 per month in Limassol, your €120–300 per year insurance, or the €70–140 permit fee. A large-sounding percentage off a private fee can still leave you paying more than the full public fee — compare €8,970–11,520 per year with €6,834 per year. A partial award does help in one place you might not expect: universities set the bank balance for your visa file themselves, and some lower it for scholarship holders.

Eligibility — grades, age, degree level, language

Level decides most of it. CyprusAid and the university merit awards run at bachelor’s and master’s. Erasmus Mundus funds master study only and asks for A first higher education degree or a recognised equivalent; final-year bachelor students may apply where the consortium allows it. You do not need an offer first — on needing admission before applying, the answer is no, because the consortium admits and funds in one decision. University awards run the opposite way: you apply for the place, and the discount is worked out from your grades.

No age limit is published for any of these awards. Grades do the filtering: merit bands are set by school-leaving average at bachelor’s and by GPA at master’s, so a mark near the top of your national scale is worth real money.

Language is an admission condition, not a visa one. The floor across Cyprus is about IELTS 5.5 for a bachelor’s and 6 for a master’s, and individual universities set their own, some lower — see studying in Cyprus without IELTS. Erasmus Mundus sets its own: Set by each consortium: the teaching language, the accepted certificate and the minimum score are published by the individual programme. One trap: the migration department does not accept UKVI IELTS certificates in a visa file.

How to apply

1. September to December 2026 — decide the route. If you want a master’s and can move country mid-course, Erasmus Mundus is the strongest option. If you want a bachelor’s, CyprusAid and university merit awards are the whole field.
2. Autumn 2026 — watch the two CyprusAid pages at Cyprus University of Technology and AUB–Mediterraneo. The 2026/27 rounds closed in June and July 2026; the 2027/28 dates are not published, so check monthly rather than waiting for an announcement.
3. October 2026 to January 2027 — the usual Erasmus Mundus window. Search the EACEA catalogue, confirm the consortium still offers scholarships for the 2027 intake, and submit one application per consortium with the scholarship box marked.
4. Any time from autumn 2026 — apply to the universities themselves. Admission is Direct to university and deadlines are Rolling; visa file ~2 months before at bachelor’s and Rolling at master’s. Ask about the merit award in the same email as your transcripts.
5. Winter 2026/27 — get documents ready. Apostille is needed: yes. Budget for KYSATS (EUR 85.43 per application) where a university or scheme asks for an equivalence.
6. Spring 2027 — prepare funding proof even with an award pending. The benchmark is €5,000–7,000 per year, set by each university, and an award letter strengthens the file.
7. Summer 2027 — accept one offer, pay the deposit and start the permit. Processing runs 4 to 13 weeks; our Cyprus student visa guide lists the documents.
8. Intakes are September, January/February, so a rejection in one round is a wait of a few months, not a year.