Scholarships International Students Can Actually Get

TL;DR: Start from the bad news, because it saves months. Free tuition under RA 10931, the CHED Merit Scholarship and DOST-SEI scholarships are all written for Filipino citizens, and no amount of correspondence changes that. What is genuinely open to foreign nationals falls into four buckets: multilateral programmes such as the ADB-Japan Scholarship Program, which funds graduate study at the Asian Institute of Management and at UP Los Banos through IRRI; regional programmes such as the SEARCA Full Master's and PhD Scholarship for nationals of SEAMEO member countries; university merit awards whose published criteria are about test performance rather than passport; and religious institutions, where a seminary may waive most or all of your tuition. The money exists. It is just not where most people look for it.

Why this article starts with what is closed

Search results for "scholarships in the Philippines for international students" are dominated by aggregator sites that list CHED and DOST programmes without mentioning the citizenship requirement. People apply, wait, and get nothing.

So here is the position, taken from the primary documents.

Republic Act No. 10931, the free higher education law, uses the phrase "Filipino students" in every operative section. Section 4 covers "All Filipino students who are either currently enrolled at the time of the effectivity of this Act, or shall enroll at any time thereafter" in state and local universities and colleges. Section 5 does the same for post-secondary technical-vocational programmes in state-run institutions. The Tertiary Education Subsidy in Section 7 is "hereby established for all Filipino students," and the student loan programme in Section 8 uses the identical wording.

UP Open University applies that directly. Its free tuition page states that tuition and other school fees shall not be collected from "Filipino undergraduate students," subject to exclusions such as already holding a bachelor's degree.

The CHED Merit Scholarship Program lists three qualifications, and the first is "Filipino Citizen." The others are a senior high school general weighted average of at least 93 per cent or equivalent, and a combined annual gross income of parents or legal guardian not exceeding PHP 500,000, roughly US$8,065 at about PHP 62 to the dollar in late August 2026. For scale, the grant is worth PHP 120,000 a year at a private HEI, split as PHP 40,000 tuition, PHP 70,000 stipend and PHP 10,000 for educational materials, or PHP 80,000 at a state university with free tuition plus a PHP 70,000 stipend and PHP 10,000 connectivity allowance. Half-subsidy versions pay 50 per cent. The AY 2025-2026 round offered 2,779 slots.

DOST-SEI undergraduate scholarships go further and require applicants to be natural-born Filipino citizens.

CHED does run an International Affairs Service, but its scholarship-facing material is titled Foreign Scholarships and Training Programs, which in Philippine usage means opportunities abroad for Filipinos rather than opportunities here for foreigners. If any agent tells you they can secure a CHED scholarship for a non-Filipino, ask them to send you the CHED page that says so. They cannot, because it does not exist.

Now the useful part.

1. ADB-Japan Scholarship Program: the strongest option

The ADB-Japan Scholarship Program has run since April 1988, financed by the Government of Japan and administered by the Asian Development Bank, which is itself headquartered in Manila. ADB describes it as offering about 135 graduate scholarships a year across 27 selected institutions in Asia and the Pacific, 17 of them in Japan, and elsewhere states that the programme enrols about 250 students annually across nine countries.

Two of the designated institutions are in the Philippines.

For the IRRI route, the thesis research must be on rice and related systems research. That is a real constraint, not a formality.

Coverage is genuinely full: tuition fees, a monthly subsistence allowance including housing, books and instructional materials, medical insurance and travel expenses. A special grant may be available for thesis preparation, and in some circumstances computer literacy or preparatory language courses may be covered.

Eligibility, quoted from ADB's own general requirements, is where most applicants fall out. You must:

• Be a national of an ADB borrowing member country and a Japanese ODA scholarship-eligible country
• Not hold dual citizenship of any developed country
• Have gained admission to an approved master's course at a designated institution
• Hold a bachelor's degree or equivalent with a superior academic record
• Have at least two years of full-time professional working experience acquired after a university degree, at the time of application
• Be no more than 35 years old at application, unless waived exceptionally with the express endorsement of the Government of Japan
• Be in good health
• Agree to return and work in your home country for at least two years after completing your studies
• Not be living or working in a country other than your home country
• Not already be enrolled in a graduate degree programme

The eligible citizenship list runs to 39 countries and areas, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Viet Nam.

Note the order of operations, because it catches people: you apply to the institution first, not to ADB. You request information and application forms from your chosen partner institution, submit the documents including the ADB-JSP information sheet to that institution, and the institution shortlists before ADB makes the final selection.

2. SEARCA, for Southeast Asians going to UPLB

The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture runs a Full Master's and PhD Scholarship that is explicitly regional rather than national.

It is open to nationals of SEAMEO member countries who are regular employees of academic or research institutions or government agencies, and who are not more than 40 years old for a master's or 45 for a PhD at the time of application. SEAMEO membership covers Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Viet Nam.

Six universities are eligible study posts, and one is in the Philippines:

• University of the Philippines Los Banos
• Institut Pertanian Bogor, Indonesia
• Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia
• Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia
• Kasetsart University, Thailand
• Universiti Putra Malaysia

Coverage is tuition and other school fees, a travel allowance covering a round-trip air ticket from the home country to the study post plus local transportation, thesis or dissertation support, a book and supplies allowance, health insurance, and a stipend for food, lodging and incidental expenses.

The employment condition is the filter that most people miss. This is a mid-career scholarship for people already working in an academic, research or government institution, not a route straight out of a bachelor's degree.

3. University merit awards that do not screen on passport

This is the least documented category and the one where you have to do your own verification, because Philippine universities rarely spell out a citizenship rule on their scholarship pages.

Ateneo de Manila University. The Ateneo College Merit Scholarship is awarded to the very best applicants based on performance in the Ateneo College Entrance Test and on individual rank and leadership roles in senior high school. The published description identifies recipients as the top applicants "from local private, science, or public high schools, and from senior high schools abroad." Merit scholars may choose any degree programme and receive a 100 per cent tuition and fees scholarship. Separately, a Director's List Scholarship carries an annual PHP 100,000 grant. The scholarship page does not state a citizenship requirement in either direction, which is why the honest advice is to write to admissions and ask before building a plan around it.

University of the Philippines. UP's own guide for undergraduate foreign and international applicants sets out the financial picture without pretending there is a foreigner-specific scholarship. Matriculation, meaning tuition, miscellaneous and student fund, runs about PHP 27,500 a semester for 17 non-laboratory units, with laboratory fees of PHP 100 to PHP 1,800 per laboratory subject. On top of that, all undergraduate foreign students pay an Education Development Fee of US$300 per semester as non-resident aliens or US$150 as resident aliens, with summer rates of US$120 and US$60. The guide then lists three financial mechanisms without a citizenship qualifier:

• Student Assistantships, described as "Open to all undergraduate students subject to approved rules and rates"
• Loans for tuition or part thereof, through the Student Loan Board at the Office of Scholarships and Student Services
• The USVA Educational Assistance Program, since UP is a USVA-approved institution, so enrolled US veterans or their children entitled under chapter 34 or 35, Title 38 of the United States Code receive an educational assistance allowance from the US government provided they carry at least 14 units a semester

That last one is genuinely useful to a small group of people and almost never mentioned anywhere.

At graduate level, individual UP units publish their own aid. The UP Institute of Islamic Studies, for example, lists an institute scholarship considered after one semester of good scholastic standing with a general weighted average of 1.75 or better and demonstrated inability to finance studies, plus graduate assistantships for students on coursework and a student loan facility. Its own foreign-student admission checklist shows the institute admits international applicants, so those instruments sit alongside a process that already contemplates you.

Before you spend time on this category, check that the university actually enrols international students at all; our directory of universities accepting international students is the shorter path.

4. Religious institutions, where the discounts are largest

If you are studying theology or ministry, the Philippines is the cheapest serious option in the region, and the discounts are steep and published.

UST Faculty of Theology. Students in the Bachelor in Theology programme who reside in the Central Seminary receive a 100 per cent discount on tuition; those residing outside receive 20 per cent. For the Licentiate in Sacred Theology and the MA in Theology, Central Seminary residents receive 50 per cent and non-residents 20 per cent. Everyone pays full miscellaneous and other fees.

Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, Baguio. APTS draws a useful distinction. Its financial aid is a seminary programme "to help qualified students with limited financial resources from less developed countries," while scholarships come from outside individuals or organisations. Preference goes to applicants demonstrating leadership and academic scholarship from an Assembly of God tradition, and most aid requires full-time enrolment of 12 or more hours, with nine possible on approval.

PTS College and Advanced Studies, Cavite. PTS publishes six scholarship types, including an entrance scholarship worth 100 per cent of tuition and miscellaneous fees for senior high school highest-honour or high-honour graduates and college cum laude graduates, an academic honour scholarship for the top three students in each of its graduate and undergraduate programmes, a need-based grant assessed on financial circumstances, donor-funded partner scholarships, a 50 per cent alumni discount and a 50 per cent discount for ordained ministers of other denominations. It also runs a two-tier international fee matrix that charges students from developing countries half what students from developed countries pay.

The full picture of that sector, including the visa route, is in our guide to seminaries and theology schools for foreign students. Muslim students looking at Islamic studies programmes will find the equivalent funding notes in our Muslim student guide to studying in the Philippines.

What none of this covers

Two honest gaps.

Undergraduate study is much harder to fund than graduate study. ADB-JSP and SEARCA are both graduate programmes. If you are 18 and looking for a fully funded bachelor's degree in the Philippines as a foreign national, the realistic answer is that it mostly does not exist outside university merit awards and family funding. Plan your budget on the assumption that you are paying, and treat any scholarship as a reduction rather than a foundation. Our breakdown of the cost of studying in the Philippines as an international student is the number to plan against, and for medical programmes specifically see the total cost of MBBS in the Philippines.

Distance study attracts fewer waivers, not more. A foreign national taking a Philippine degree online still pays the non-Filipino surcharges without access to the citizen-only free tuition, as we set out in can foreigners earn a Philippine degree online.

How to run the search properly

1. Filter by your own nationality first. ADB-JSP and SEARCA both have hard country lists; check yours before reading anything else.
2. Look for multilateral and bilateral bodies rather than Philippine government agencies. ADB, SEAMEO and IRRI fund foreigners. CHED and DOST fund Filipinos.
3. Apply to the institution, not to the funder, where the programme works that way. ADB-JSP is selected through the partner university.
4. For university awards, email the admissions office and ask a single yes-or-no question: is this scholarship available to a non-Filipino applicant. Keep the reply.
5. Treat any offer that arrives through an agent, unsolicited, as unverified until you find it on the funder's own site.
6. Budget for the non-Filipino surcharges. The Education Development Fee at UP and the Educational Development Fund at UPOU are real costs that no scholarship in this article automatically covers.

Sources

• Republic Act No. 10931, Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act
• CHED Merit Scholarship Program
• DOST Regional Office IX: 2026 DOST-SEI Undergraduate Scholarships Application
• UP Open University Registrar: Free Tuition
• ADB-Japan Scholarship Program: main page and eligibility
• ADB-Japan Scholarship Program: list of academic institutions
• SEARCA: Full Master's and PhD Scholarships
• Ateneo de Manila University: Scholarship and Financial Aid Programs
• UP Diliman Office of the University Registrar: General Information for Undergraduate Foreign / International Applicants
• UP Institute of Islamic Studies: Scholarships
• UST Faculty of Theology: Academic Programs, Fees and Discounts
• Asia Pacific Theological Seminary: Scholarships and Financial Aid
• PTS College and Advanced Studies: Scholarships