Doesn’t matter if you are coming to Germany to do your Masters, your Bachelors or for Ph.D. studying in Germany already relieves the stress of paying tuition fee to the universities, but there are some students whose financial situations might be difficult and are planning to fund their studies with some scholarships. Even if your financial situation isn’t bad, you can still avail one based on your grades and the scores of your Bachelors and Masters here in Germany. In the next few hundred words, I am going to tell you in DETAIL about everything that you need to know about landing yourself a really good Scholarship, so that you can save money for yourself and invest it on more important things that bring you further in your career because nobody comes to Germany to just study here. Most of us want to get the money that we invested in studying back and that you can do in a plenty of ways, starting from getting a scholarship.
Types of Scholarships:
These are the scholarships that you apply for, when you have already received an admit from a university in Germany but are still in your own home country.
Scholarships which you can apply for after you are already enrolled in a university are called post-admission scholarships. These type of scholarships are quite a few in number and after this article, you will easily find yourself one.
General Information:
Unlike in other countries like Canada, America or Australia, where the universities bombard students with ludacris offers for scholarships to enroll in their universities, Germany in general doesn’t offer anything like that because most of the reputed universities here are Public universities which receive funding directly from the government and the organisations they work together with. If the government already asks you to show a blocked amount of 8640 Euros when you are applying for the visa to Germany, why would the government contradict its own policies by letting another German entity fully fund your stay when they are teaching you on the tax payer’s money? No tuition fee means, there is no major revenue that the government is earning and the cost of professors and infrastructure of the university is taken up by the tax payers. Had Germany imposed 30,000 Euros per year of tuition fee like you find in Australia, USA or Canada, they would also be happy to give you some ‘Discounts’ for studiyng in their country because they are the ones who are receiving the net benefit from it. Even if for a tuition fee of 30k Euros, they give you a scholarship for 10k Euros, they are still the party which is being benefitted in the end from it.
Pre-admission scholarships
Along with the resource that you might have already expected me to mention, daad.de, you should always check your university’s website and see what kind of scholarships they provide, if they provide any at all. For this you have to do one simple thing and that is use Google. Along with using English keywords, it’s important that you use the German ones too, because even though you might get some results by using English keywords, you will still be missing out on the 99% results that you would use with the German keywords (feel free to replace Master with any course that you are planning to study):
- Master Stipendium Deutschland
- Stipendium Deutschland
- Studienförderung für Master
- Scholarships (Name of the university)



If pre-admission scholarships was 1% of the total number of scholarships that you can ever apply for, the 99% are still left and ready to be had, the only problem is, that most people don’t know about it because most of the documentation regarding it is in German. That is the reason, I always stress about learning German when you are planning on coming to Germany, otherwise you will keep on missing on majority of the opportunity that this wonderful country has to offer you. Once, you are enrolled in the university and already studying your Masters, you will be able to apply for these scholarships and with good luck and a good cover letter, you will be able to nail that one. Even some major companies like Airbus, Lufthansa, Deutschebahn, Vatenfall, Hochtief, Bilfinger, BMW, Audi and others have their own Studienförder (Study support) programs. e.g.https://www.bmwgroup.com/de/karriere/programme/speedup.html The majority of the list of such organisations or big companies which provide scholarship, you will find in this document which you can download use for your own benefits.
Requirements for Scholarships
Now, as much as you would want me to spoon feed you or as much as I would like to tell you, what requirements are there to apply for scholarships, it’s not so easy to do the same and this is also the reason, a very few number of hard working students find out about scholarships and can make their lives easier. The requirements of each scholarship is different and each scholarship also serves different purpose, but in general, here is the rule of thumb that you would have to follow if you are thinking about getting some scholarships:
- Good Bachelor grade
- Excellent grades in Masters (for post admission scholarships)
- CV displaying engagement in extra-curricular activities
- Persuasive Motivation Letter
Once, these things are covered, it’s also possible that the organisations ask you for some photographs or description of what kind of projects you would like to do with the organisation in the future, but it all depends from one organisation to the other.
Here are some important websites where you can try to find a scholarship for your individual profile:
- https://www.stipendienlotse.de/
- https://www.stipendiumplus.de/startseite.html
- https://www.mystipendium.de/
- https://www.daad.de/deutschland/stipendium/datenbank/en/21148-scholarship-database/
- https://stiftungssuche.de/
These are all the scholarships sites that you can use these days to find a funding for your studies, at least, unless we come up with our own BiG Scholarship. 💪 Happy hunting for the scholarships and if you don’t want to be selfish and also want the others to know about this information, feel free to share it!
Moral of the Story
If you have downloaded the scholarship list till now and went through the website links provided to you, you must have very easily understood that without German, you will just be tapping into 1% of the total potential that Germany has to offer to you. For the same reason, proper and affordable German courses are coming on the website very soon, so that you learn how to actually use the German that you know in everyday lives and in the university. It wouldn’t only let you know about what offers are going around in your local place, but also improve your job chances after your studies.
swaroop
Thank you very much for sharing.
MD Nipu Hossain
I am Nipu from Bangladesh. I want to full scholarship and without ielts undergraduate program apply in Germany university. Please help me how to process
Shivam
Thank you so much for this article sir.
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[…] Confirmation of a scholarship/stipend: If you have received or have confirmation that you will be receiving a scholarship or a stipend from a university, it can be submitted at the time of visa interview. […]