Funded Masters for Sri Lankan Students Abroad (2026)

Search "scholarships for Sri Lankan students" and most lists read like the same five names copied from country to country, with two persistent local mix-ups thrown in: Mahapola and the President's Fund, neither of which actually sends anyone abroad. Here's what's genuinely open to Sri Lankan applicants, what each one actually funds, and which single program on this list is the one that also covers a PhD.

Fulbright: a real master's route, with a firm residency rule

The Fulbright Master's Degree Scholarship Awards for Sri Lankans, administered by the Fulbright Sri Lanka Commission, fund full master's study in the United States and are master's-only, there's no equivalent Fulbright PhD track for Sri Lankan applicants the way there is, for example, through Fulbright-Nehru for India. Two eligibility details worth knowing before you plan around this one: you need a four-year bachelor's degree from a recognized Sri Lankan university, and you must have lived continuously in Sri Lanka for at least two years immediately before the deadline, which typically lands on 31 May. Our Fulbright Foreign Student Program application guide covers the general selection mechanics that apply on top of these country-specific rules.

Chevening: master's only, same as everywhere else

Chevening is open to Sri Lankan applicants and, as with every country it operates in, funds a one-year taught master's degree at any UK university, not a PhD, a separate Chevening Fellowship exists for shorter non-degree research stints but that's a different program entirely. The standard global requirements apply: at least two years of full-time work experience (2,800 hours) and a two-year return-to-Sri-Lanka commitment after the degree. Our guide to writing a Chevening personal statement covers the four-essay format in depth.

Commonwealth Scholarships: the one route on this list that funds a PhD

Sri Lanka's status as a Commonwealth member nation opens both Commonwealth Master's and Commonwealth PhD Scholarships, funded through the UK Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC). For the 2026 intake, Sri Lanka's Ministry of Higher Education sought nominations for 9 master's and 6 PhD positions through the CSC's online portal, with a nomination window that ran from 2 September to 14 October 2025. A minimum upper second-class (2:1) honours degree is required for the master's route, and PhD applicants additionally need a completed master's degree. Our full guide to winning the Commonwealth Scholarship covers the nomination process and what the selection committee actually weighs.

Australia Awards: real recent numbers, master's only

Sri Lanka sits within the Australia Awards South Asia and Mongolia program, alongside Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Mongolia, and the funding here covers postgraduate coursework master's degrees, not PhD study. The real, recent figures: 28 Sri Lankan scholars were selected for study commencing in 2026, including 19 women and 8 applicants from ethnic minority groups, following 25 scholars who completed the program in 2025. Applications for this cycle typically open on 1 February and close on 30 April.

Erasmus Mundus: worldwide-open, but check each consortium's quota

Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters are open to Sri Lankan applicants the same way they're open to almost any non-EU nationality, and like every Erasmus Mundus program, this is a master's-only structure, there's no joint-PhD equivalent. One genuine quirk worth knowing before you apply: individual consortium programs set their own country-level funding quotas each cycle, and some specific 2026-intake programs had exhausted their EU funding allocation for applicants from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines, offering fee-waiver-only places to those nationalities instead of full scholarships that particular cycle. This is a program-by-program limit, not a Sri Lanka-wide exclusion, so check each consortium's current country quota individually rather than assuming one program's terms apply across all of them.

DAAD: a specific regional track through Delhi, plus the general database

Beyond Germany's general DAAD scholarship database, which Sri Lankan applicants can search directly, there's a specific DAAD Regional Scholarship Programme for students from Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka that funds master's and PhD study at IIT Delhi in a defined set of fields: atmospheric and oceanic science, geology, mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Sri Lankan applicants are also covered under DAAD's broader EPOS scheme for development-related postgraduate courses, which is primarily master's-level, with PhD funding available only in exceptional cases. DAAD's activities for Sri Lanka run through its regional office in New Delhi and an information centre in Colombo, worth knowing since it explains why some DAAD correspondence for Sri Lankan applicants routes through India-based contacts.

Mahapola and the President's Fund: two names that don't belong on this list

Two Sri Lankan program names show up constantly in scholarship searches and neither actually funds study abroad. The Mahapola Higher Education Scholarship Trust Fund supports Sri Lankan students studying locally, at universities inside Sri Lanka, it has never been an overseas-funding scheme. The Presidential Scholarships administered through Sri Lankan universities run the opposite direction from what the name implies: they fund foreign students to come study in Sri Lanka, not Sri Lankan students to study overseas. No dedicated, currently active Sri Lankan government fund for outbound postgraduate study abroad exists; the Ministry of Higher Education's Overseas Education Division facilitates and posts nominations for the foreign-funded programs above, but it isn't itself a funding source. Ruling these two out early saves real research time.

Why professor outreach is worth running alongside every one of these

Fulbright, Chevening, Commonwealth, and Australia Awards each decide a small, fixed number of awards through a national or bilateral committee, evaluated against every other eligible Sri Lankan applicant that cycle. A professor's own grant-funded position runs on completely different logic: one supervisor deciding whether your specific background fits research they're actively funding right now, independent of any national quota. GradScoutFunding searches professors by field and country, confirms they're actively publishing, and drafts a personalized outreach email grounded in a real recent paper of theirs, for you to review and send yourself, giving you a parallel path to run while a scholarship decision is still pending. Your first 2 credits are free, no card required.

Building a realistic timeline across all four cycles

With Australia Awards typically opening in February, Commonwealth nominations running September through October, and Fulbright's deadline landing at the end of May, the most useful first step isn't picking one favorite program and waiting, it's mapping every deadline you're genuinely eligible for onto a single calendar and working backward from the earliest one. Academic transcripts, reference letters, and a research or study statement all take real weeks to assemble properly. Since Commonwealth is the only program here that funds a PhD, decide early whether that's your actual target degree, it should shape which of these four you prioritize preparing for first.

Common questions