10 US Universities Offering 100% Scholarships to International Students in 2026
What if I told you there are universities in the US where you can study with 100% scholarships as an international student?
In this article, we will talk about 10 schools that give full scholarships to Bachelors, Master’s, and PhD students.
For each of these schools, we talk about the acceptance rates, the kind of scholarships they offer, the application deadline, and the application requirements so you have enough information to make the right decision. Let us start from the lowest to the highest acceptance rates!
US Universities Offering 100% Scholarships to International Students
University of Vermont
Located in Burlington, Vermont, with an acceptance rate of 59.8%, this acceptance rate means that out of every 100 applicants, they only admit 60. They have a $25,000 scholarship for undergraduate students and great assistantships for graduate students, including both Master’s and PhD.
Let me quickly explain the kind of scholarships you can expect from a US University. Undergraduate students could get free money to aid their education, but graduate students don’t—there’s no free money for them.
We get graduate assistantships, where you work up to 20 hours a week for the University, either through your department or another unit in the school. In return, they waive your tuition fees, which are your school fees, and pay you a stipend at the end of the month. Those stipends will cover your rent and feeding and take care of you moderately.
This is precisely what I’m experiencing now in my fully funded PhD, so my program pays for my courses and still pays me at the end of the month in exchange for the weekly work I do for them. Please remember this as we go through all the 10 universities today.
If you plan to start in the fall semester, the deadline is June 24, 2026, but if you’re looking towards the spring, it’s November 8, 2026. The application fee for this University is $65.
For those who want to save money by not writing IELTS or TOEFL, I have good news for you—Vermont waives this English test for both Nigerians and Ghanaians, which I believe most of you are reading. I appreciate you all, and I’m doing this research and bringing all this information to help you succeed.
Florida International University
Located in Miami, Florida, a city with beautiful beaches, it has an acceptance rate of 63.9%. They give 100% tuition to undergraduate students and great assistantships to graduate students. You should submit your application for the fall semester ion by February 15, 2026; for spring, it’s August 1, 2026.
I advise you to use these dates—February 15 and August 1—for all the universities you’ll be applying to because you want to get admission early so you can start processing your visa. These universities don’t know about the long queues we have in the embassies of our countries. They don’t know that many people want to travel, so it’s perfect that you’re reading this, which means you’re planning and will stay ahead.
We also waive the English test for Nigerians and Ghanaians—Charlie, that’s good news! Oh, this school has the cheapest application fee of $30. By the way, all the universities we’ll be talking about today have application fees, but later on, I’ll tell you how to waive them so you can apply for free.
Mississippi State University
Located in Mississippi State, Mississippi, with an acceptance rate of 75.2%, they have a $25,000 scholarship for undergrad students and great assistantships for graduate students. For application deadlines, fall students should apply before May 1, 2026, and spring students before October 1, 2026.
In US universities, most scholarships are available for students starting in the fall semester. The academic calendar usually runs from August to May, and that’s also how the departments plan their budgets. Some still get good funding when they start in the spring semester, but they are not as much as those who begin in the fall.
They also waive the English test for Nigerians and Ghanaians, and the application fee is $80, which is far different from the Florida we just saw with thirty dollars.
University of Maryland
Located in Baltimore County, Maryland—different from the University of Maryland at College Park—they have an acceptance rate of 80.6%. Later on, we’ll still see universities that have acceptance rates of over 90%.
They give 50% of tuition to undergraduate students, so this isn’t fully funded, but they also have great assistantships. The fall and spring semesters application deadlines differ based on your program, so you want to check with your department to know the deadlines.
I’m sharing much information about each school, which might be hard to remember, but don’t worry, I got you. At the end of this article, I’ll share how to access a compiled Excel sheet with everything we’ve discussed so you can check which universities offer the program you want to study. They also waive the English test; the application fee is $50.
University of Nevada
Located in Reno, Nevada, with an acceptance rate of 85.6%, bear in mind that although these acceptance rates are for undergraduate admissions, they also give you an idea of what the competition of a graduate program will be like.
The acceptance rate of Harvard University is 3.2%, but you wouldn’t expect their Master’s program to have an acceptance rate of 50% now. For this University, I didn’t see any full scholarships for undergraduates, but they have graduate assistantships.
The application deadlines for both fall and spring are also program-dependent. They also waive the English test; the application fee is $95, the highest on our list.
I’m seeking schools that waive the English test. In addition to saving you money, let me tell you my story. In 2017, when I started applying to study in the US, I took the TOEFL and got 94, which gave me several admissions.
Afterwards, I received three visa denials from 2018 to 2020, and the TOEFL expired after two years, so mine naturally expired. Then, when I was doing my applications in 2020, I didn’t want to rewrite the TOEFL again, so I was specifically looking for schools that waive the English test, and those were the schools I was applying to.
University of Findlay
Located in Findlay, Ohio, with an acceptance rate of 86%, I did my Master’s in Bowling Green, Ohio, about 30 minutes from Findlay, where I experienced my first snow. They have a $24,000 scholarship for undergraduates and graduate assistantships as well. For application deadlines, fall students should apply before June 20, 2026, and spring students before November 10, 2026.
The application fee is $75, and they only waive IELTS for Ghanaians but not Nigerians, which was quite strange to me. So, if you studied in English, like we do in Nigeria, you can get proof of English proficiency from your University and submit it. That’s precisely what I did—I got mine from UNN and submitted it during my applications, which helped me waive some English tests.
University of Arizona
Located in Tucson, Arizona, with an acceptance rate of 86.8%, they have this impressive Global Wildcat Award, where you can get as high as $23,000, and they also have full-time graduate assistantships for graduate students.
The application window for undergraduates in the fall is August 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026, and then May 6, 2026, to November 1, 2026, for those applying in the spring. I didn’t see application deadlines for graduate students, so it’s most likely program-dependent like we saw at the University of Maryland.
They also waive the English tests; the application fee for undergraduates is $85, and for graduate students, it is $90. Many schools have the exact fees for undergrad and graduate students, but some are different, just like Arizona.
Miami University
Not located in Florida but in Oxford, Ohio, with an acceptance rate of 87.9%, they have a $22,000 scholarship for undergraduates and graduate assistantships.
The fall and spring semesters application deadlines are program-dependent, so you want to check with your program. They also waive the English test; the application fee is $50.
Kent State University
Located in Kent, Ohio, with an acceptance rate of 88%, they have a $17,000 scholarship for undergrad students, which is a little higher than we saw in Miami, and then they also have great assistantships for graduate students.
The application deadlines for both fall and spring are program-dependent, and they waive the English test for Nigerians and Ghanaians. The application fee is $70.
Missouri State University
Located in Springfield, Missouri, with an acceptance rate of 92.6%, they almost admit anyone who applies to the undergraduate program.
They have scholarships ranging from $5,500 to $10,000 for undergraduate students and graduate assistantships. For application deadlines, fall students should apply before May 1, 2026, and spring students before October 1, 2026.
They also waive the English test, and the application fee is $50 for undergraduate students, but for graduate students, it varies based on your program.
Western Kentucky University
To stay in the end, here’s a bonus University for you! Located in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with an acceptance rate of 96.9%, that is the highest acceptance rate on the list.
Undergraduate students have this freshman scholarship of $7,500 per year and this TP scholarship of $9,500, and graduate students, as usual, have graduate assistantships. The application deadlines for both fall and spring semesters depend on your program. They also waive the English test, but the application fee is $95.
For all the schools we spoke about today—you can download a document using a link from scholarship resources online, which could help you organize your whole school search process, This is precisely what I used then.
Of all the universities you shortlist, I strongly recommend you apply to at least five universities. This number makes any visa officer consider you a serious student. While doing it, you naturally see that paying all these application fees could be a problem, but the good news is they can all be waived. There are ways to get your application fees waived when you’re applying, so check with each University for those options.
