Scholarships for a PhD in USA

As of the latest verification run, 90 active PhD scholarships are listed for the USA, including 50 that offer full funding (tuition and stipend combined), 19 stipend-only awards, and 21 partial awards. Every entry links to its own official university, government or foundation source.

A handful target Indian applicants directly - the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship (Indian citizens only), the Indo-U.S. Fellowship for Women in STEMM (WISTEMM, run by India's Department of Science & Technology with the Indo-U.S. Science & Technology Forum), the Rackham Indian Alumni Fellowship (University of Michigan), and the Guru Gobind Singh Fellowship (UC Berkeley). Most of the remaining list is open to “all international” applicants, which includes Indian citizens - use the “Open to Indian students” filter in the finder tool to confirm eligibility on any entry.

Almost never at the scholarship level - across this list, only a small number state a specific GRE, GMAT, TOEFL or IELTS cutoff. Most defer entirely to the university's own PhD admission requirements, since the scholarship is awarded alongside admission rather than through a separate application.

“Full funding” means tuition plus a living stipend for the PhD's duration (the most common pattern at USA universities - most PhD offers there include this by default). “Stipend” awards add a cash award or research grant on top of whatever funding the university already provides. “Partial” awards cover a portion of cost - a tuition waiver, a fixed grant, or a fee reduction - without guaranteeing full cost of study.

It depends on the award: 51 of the 90 listings carry a specific monthly deadline (shown in the table above), while the rest are assessed automatically at PhD admission or vary by department cycle - so the practical answer for most is “apply with your PhD application, on that program's admission deadline.” Always confirm the current date on the official source before applying.

75 of these 90 entries were confirmed live at their official source on the latest verification run; the remaining 15 are held in an integrity queue as not-yet-confirmed - their official page is live, but we couldn't confirm the listing on our last review run (sometimes the provider's site restricts outside access). See the Verification Ledger for the full methodology and run date.