Two or three awards a year. That number should shape how anyone treats this: Oxford says competition is very high and states plainly that it has no additional funding for candidates who are not offered a scholarship, so this cannot be the plan that makes Oxford affordable.
What it covers is complete for those few: course fees, a living grant and one return flight a year, for the full three or four years of the course.
The eligibility test is about circumstances at home rather than achievement alone. Candidates must be nationals of a country on the OECD aid-recipient list and unable to study for a degree in their own country, whether for political or financial reasons or because the facilities do not exist. Financial need, social commitment and an intention to return home after graduating all weigh in selection, alongside the highest academic ability.
The order of events is fixed and unforgiving. An Oxford offer must already be in hand, because the University will not look at a scholarship application from someone without one. The scholarship application then goes in during January of the year the course actually begins, which for a deferred offer means a year later than the offer itself, and it can only be considered once.
Two smaller points that decide cases. Medicine is the only excluded subject. And a college that does not participate in the scheme is not a barrier, since a successful candidate is transferred to one that does.
Priority goes to applicants who have not studied at undergraduate level before.
The scholarship page was checked on 16 September 2026.