Scholarships to Study in Greece for International Students

The cheapest part of studying in Greece is the part nobody calls a scholarship. Walk into the registry of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, or Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as a Greek-taught undergraduate, and the tuition line on your account reads zero — for an EU student and a non-EU student alike — and the university hands you your course textbooks for free on top of it. That single fact reshapes the whole funding question. In most countries, the search for scholarships is a scramble to cover a large fee. In Greece, the fee is already waived for the Greek-taught public route, so the real game is funding your living costs, which run about €8,000 a year, among the lowest in the European Union. Get that framing right and Greece goes from “how do I afford this” to “how do I top up an already-small bill.”

Here is the bottom line. Greek-taught public university tuition is free for everyone, with free textbooks, so the biggest “scholarship” is structural and automatic. The marquee named scheme is the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs undergraduate programme, about 50 places a year with a €650 monthly allowance, full tuition exemption and free textbooks (Hellenic MFA). Around it sit the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY), Fulbright Greece for US–Greece exchange, the Onassis Foundation for postgraduate study open to all nationalities, Erasmus+ for EU mobility, and home-country national scholarship agencies (such as Germany’s DAAD or Poland’s NAWA) for students whose government funds outbound study. The caveat worth stating plainly: because the system is already cheap, Greece does not have the dense, high-value scholarship culture of higher-fee countries. For most students that is a relief rather than a gap — there is simply less fee to chase.

This guide covers the whole funding picture for an international student: why the free public route is the scholarship that matters most, every named scheme worth applying to and what each actually pays, how funding differs for the free Greek-taught route versus the fee-paying English-taught one, and the order in which to chase money so you do not waste effort. It sits under our complete guide to studying in Greece, which covers tuition, the two admissions routes, the Type D visa and the costs in full. If your field is medicine, read it alongside our guide to studying medicine in Greece; if you are still choosing where to apply, see the best universities in Greece.

Scholarships and Funding in Greece, Key Numbers 2025/2026

Source: Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs; IKY; QS Study in Greece guide; Eurydice / European Commission. Scholarship terms change yearly — confirm before applying.

The biggest scholarship is the one nobody advertises

Before you spend a weekend hunting named awards, understand the structural saving, because it dwarfs almost everything else. For its entire modern history Greek public higher education has been free at the point of use, and that has not changed. First-cycle (undergraduate) study taught in Greek at a public university carries no tuition fee for EU or non-EU students — a point confirmed by Eurydice, the European Commission’s official education-information network — and the university supplies your textbooks at no cost. There is no application, no competition, no annual renewal form; the waiver is the default state of the system.

Put numbers on it. A private medical school in much of Europe can cost €15,000–€25,000 a year; a UK undergraduate degree runs £24,000–£40,000 a year in international tuition. A Greek-taught public degree costs nothing in tuition, which means the only money you need is for living, and at roughly €8,000 a year per the QS Study in Greece guide, few EU countries are cheaper to live in as a student. Layer on the student discounts of up to 50% on intercity transport, ferries and museum entry, and the effective cost of being a student in Greece is lower than the scholarship-adjusted cost of studying almost anywhere comparable.

The catch is the same one that runs through the whole Greek system: language. The free route is the Greek-taught route, and it requires a Greek B2 certificate to enter (or a one-year preparatory course if you arrive without it). If you are willing to learn Greek, the entire public system opens up for free, and named scholarships become a bonus on top. If you need to study in English, your tuition is no longer zero — it is €4,000–€6,000 a year for most bachelor’s programmes, €12,000–€17,000 for medicine — and that is precisely where the named, mostly-partial scholarships start to matter. The funding strategy you choose follows directly from which route your subject and your language allow.

The scholarships that actually exist — and what each pays

Greece’s named schemes are fewer and, mostly, smaller than what you would find in a high-fee country, but they are real, and several are unusually generous for the right candidate. The table below leads with who each scheme is genuinely for, because eligibility — not amount — is what decides whether a scholarship is worth your time. Every claim is checked against the awarding body’s own material.

The standout is the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs undergraduate scholarship programme: about 50 places a year at Greek public universities — institutions such as the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and the University of Patras — for foreign nationals and for students of Greek origin living abroad, paying a €650 monthly allowance, a full tuition exemption and free textbooks for the length of the degree. For anyone with Greek heritage, it is hard to find a stronger undergraduate award anywhere in Europe, and because it is administered through Greek embassies and consulates, you apply via the diplomatic mission in your country rather than the university itself. The Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) is the national body that runs a rotating menu of grants, postgraduate awards and exchange schemes; the specific calls change yearly, so check its site for current openings. Fulbright Greece, the binational US–Greece foundation, funds graduate study, research and teaching exchanges in both directions and is the main structured route for Americans. The Onassis Foundation funds postgraduate study and research and is notable for being open to applicants of all nationalities, not only Greeks. For EU students, Erasmus+ funds a mobility period (study or traineeship) at a Greek partner university while you stay enrolled at home, and many students can stack top-up funding from their home-country national scholarship agency (such as Germany’s DAAD or Poland’s NAWA) that travels with them.

How funding differs by route — free Greek-taught versus fee-paying English

Funding in Greece splits along the same fault line as admissions: the language of your programme. Treating the two routes the same is the single most common mistake we see, so be deliberate about which one you are funding.

On the free Greek-taught route, there is no tuition to fund, so scholarships are about living costs and convenience, not survival. The MFA programme’s €650 a month does most of the heavy lifting here precisely because it lands on top of a €0 tuition bill, so it can cover the bulk of your living costs outright. IKY grants, home-country agency top-ups (such as DAAD or NAWA), and Erasmus+ periods all do the same job: they pad a budget that is already small. The students who get the most out of this route do not over-invest in scholarship hunting; they invest in Greek to B2 in year one, the thing that unlocked the free tuition in the first place, and treat any grant as a bonus.

On the fee-paying English-taught route, the calculus flips. Now you have a real fee to cover — €4,000–€6,000 a year for most bachelor’s programmes, €12,000–€17,000 for the English-medium medical degrees — and the named national schemes mostly do not target it. Your best bets here are programme- and university-specific awards, which are increasingly common as English tracks compete for international students, but are usually partial (a few thousand euros off the fee) and competitive. The safe planning rule: budget assuming you win nothing, and treat any award as a discount. For the medical degrees in particular, scholarships are scarce relative to the fee, so families should plan to pay; the value case for Greek medicine rests on the fee being low to begin with, not on a scholarship erasing it. Our medicine in Greece guide breaks the medical-fee picture down programme by programme.

Funding by Route at a Glance

Source: Hellenic MFA; IKY; QS Study in Greece guide; Eurydice. English-taught fees and university awards are recent and evolving — confirm on the programme page for your intake year.

The order to chase funding — a practical sequence

Most families waste effort by starting with the named prizes and never getting to the structural saving. Reverse it. The sequence that consistently produces the lowest net cost, in our experience advising families, runs from the largest, most certain saving to the smallest, least certain one.

First, decide whether the free route is open to your subject. If your field is taught in Greek at a public university and you are willing to reach B2, you have already covered the largest cost — tuition — for free. This decision is worth more than any scholarship, and it is yours to make, not a committee’s. Second, if you have Greek heritage or are a foreign national targeting a Greek public university, apply to the MFA programme through your nearest Greek embassy or consulate; with 50 places and a €650 monthly allowance, it is the single most valuable named scheme for undergraduates. Third, layer on the nationality-linked routes: Erasmus+ if you are an EU student wanting a funded period, your home-country national scholarship agency (such as DAAD or NAWA) if your government funds outbound study, Fulbright if you are American and pursuing graduate study. Fourth, for English-taught and postgraduate study, read every programme’s funding page and apply to IKY calls, the Onassis Foundation (postgraduate, all nationalities) and university awards you qualify for. Fifth, lean on the quiet subsidies — the up-to-50% student discounts on buses, ferries and cultural sites, and the country’s genuinely low living costs, which do more for a real budget than most small grants.

Worked in that order, the system rewards organisation over luck. The family that settles the route question first, files the MFA application early through the consulate, and lines up the nationality-linked grants in parallel will almost always finish ahead of the one that spent its energy on a single long-shot prize. The patient and the organised do better here than the lucky.

Where the Money Actually Comes From

A realistic funding stack for an international student in Greece, 2025/26.

Source: indicative funding stack from Hellenic MFA, IKY, Fulbright Greece, Onassis Foundation, European Commission and QS; amounts vary by scheme and year.

How College Council helps

Greek funding rewards people who understand the system, and the system is genuinely confusing from the outside: the free route hides behind a language requirement, the named schemes are scattered across embassies and foundations, and the difference between a structural tuition waiver and a partial programme discount is exactly the kind of detail that trips up international families. That is the work we do together — mapping which route is open to you, whether your subject lets you study free in Greek, and which schemes are worth the application time — drawing on the same university data that powers this guide. From the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens to Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, every Greek public university sits in our Atlas, with programmes, location and admission data. Start by creating a free account on College Council and running your profile through our chances tool to see which Greek programmes — and which funded alternatives across Europe — actually fit you.

On the testing side, the fee-paying English-taught route into Greece runs on a strong TOEFL or IELTS score, and that score also unlocks many of the university and programme awards. Our TOEFL app delivers full TOEFL iBT practice tests with AI-graded speaking and writing feedback — the closest thing to a real mock exam you can do from home. Many of our families apply to Greece alongside the US or UK, where the SAT matters and some Greek English-taught programmes accept it too; our SAT app runs the full digital SAT with adaptive practice, so you prepare once and apply broadly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary — how to fund a Greek degree

Greece is the rare destination where the funding question has a reassuring answer for most students: you probably do not need a scholarship to afford it. The Greek-taught public route waives tuition entirely and throws in free textbooks, living costs sit near the bottom of the European range at around €8,000 a year, and student discounts of up to 50% quietly subsidise daily life. Against that backdrop, the named schemes are genuine bonuses — the MFA programme (50 places, €650 a month, full waiver) for foreign nationals and Greek-origin students, IKY and the Onassis Foundation for grants and postgraduate study, Fulbright for Americans, and Erasmus+ plus home-country national scholarship agencies (such as DAAD or NAWA) for EU students. The honest trade-offs are the Greek-language requirement that gates the free route, and the fee on the English-taught route, where scholarships are mostly partial and you should budget to pay.

If your subject is taught in Greek and you will learn the language, Greece can deliver a recognised European degree for the cost of living alone. If you need English-medium study, plan around the fee and chase the programme-level awards. Either way, start from the structural saving and work outward — and build the shortlist on real data.

Next Steps

1. Decide your route first — if your subject is taught in Greek and you will reach B2, your tuition is already free; that decision beats any scholarship.
2. Apply to the MFA programme — foreign nationals and Greek-origin students should apply through their nearest Greek embassy or consulate for the €650/month undergraduate scheme.
3. Stack the nationality routes — Erasmus+ for EU students, your home-country national scholarship agency (such as DAAD or NAWA) if your government funds outbound study, Fulbright for Americans pursuing graduate study.
4. Read every programme’s funding page — for English-taught and postgraduate study, apply to IKY, Onassis and university awards you qualify for.
5. Build a balanced shortlist — create a free College Council account and run your profile through our chances tool to see which funded Greek and European options fit.

Read Also

• Study in Greece: complete guide for international students — the full hub: tuition, admissions routes, visa and costs
• Best universities in Greece for international students — which Greek universities lead, by subject
• How to study medicine in Greece — the five English-taught MD programmes and their real fees
• Study in Portugal: complete guide for international students — another sunny, affordable EU route
• Study in Scandinavia: free-tuition universities — free or low-cost study further north

Sources and Methodology

Funding figures are drawn from the awarding bodies’ own materials and cross-checked against College Council’s Atlas dataset of Greek higher-education institutions and the EU’s official education-information sources. We lead with the structural tuition waiver because in Greece it is worth more than any named scholarship for most students. Scholarship amounts, place counts and deadlines change yearly and are administered through embassies, consulates and foundations, so always confirm the current figure and the open call on the awarding body’s official page for your intake year before applying.

1. Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs — Undergraduate scholarships in Greece (≈50 places/year for foreign nationals and students of Greek origin abroad; €650/month allowance, full tuition exemption, free textbooks)
2. IKY — Greek State Scholarships Foundation — Scholarships and exchanges (national scholarship body; rotating grants, postgraduate awards and mobility schemes)
3. Fulbright Greece — Scholarships and exchanges (binational US–Greece graduate study, research and teaching exchange in both directions)
4. Onassis Foundation — Scholarships programme (postgraduate study and research; open to all nationalities)
5. European Commission — Erasmus+ programme (funded study/traineeship mobility periods; Greece a top destination)
6. NAWA — Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange — Programmes (Polish national-agency funding that travels with the student)
7. Eurydice / European Commission — Greece national student fees (first-cycle public study free; foreign-language and Open University programmes bear fees)
8. QS / TopUniversities — Study in Greece destination guide (free Greek-taught tuition; English BA €4,000–€6,000; medicine €12,000–€17,000; living ≈ €8,000/year; 50% student discounts)
9. College Council — Atlas higher-education dataset (Greek HEI identity, location and programme data; Wikidata-keyed canonical records) and internal advising experience with international applicant families