Scholarships and Student Funding in Eritrea
By Muntasir • Published Apr 02, 2026 • Updated Aug 08, 2026 • African Countries & Cities, African Scholarships & Student Funding
Eritrea funds higher education by making public college tuition free rather than through scholarships. Funded study in another African country mostly happens through refugee scholarship programs, since Eritreans still living in the country need government permission to travel abroad.
💵 Public college tuition inside Eritrea costs nothing. Your Sawa exam score decides your funded place, there is no separate scholarship layer on top.
🎓 The DAFI scholarship, funded by Germany and run by UNHCR, pays for university study for refugees, and it has funded hundreds of Eritrean refugee students in Ethiopia.
📩 Eritreans need an exit visa to leave the country, which limits how many students still resident in Eritrea can take up funded study elsewhere in Africa.
No verified national Eritrean government scholarship fund for study abroad exists beyond this refugee route.
Free tuition is Eritrea's main funding model
Most African countries separate the cost of tuition from the scholarships that help pay it. Eritrea does not work this way. Eritrea's six public colleges, from the Eritrea Institute of Technology to Orotta School of Medicine and Dentistry, are state-run and widely reported to charge students no tuition, though Eritrea's Ministry of Education publishes no fee schedule confirming this, per the list of Eritrean higher education institutions . Verify with the institution before assuming your place is cost-free.
This means the usual scholarship search, comparing awards, deadlines and eligibility across multiple funders, mostly does not apply if you plan to study inside Eritrea. The decision that matters is your result in the national exam you sit during your final secondary year at Sawa, which determines whether you get a funded college place at all.
Why there is no separate merit scholarship layer
Because tuition is already free for everyone who is placed, Eritrea has no publicly documented merit or need-based scholarship scheme sitting on top of college admission. Your placement, and the subject you study, follow your exam score and the government's assessment of workforce needs rather than a competitive scholarship application.
DAFI: funded study for refugees in other African countries
The clearest funded path to studying at a university elsewhere in Africa applies to Eritreans who have already left the country and hold refugee status. The DAFI scholarship (Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative) is funded by the German government and run by UNHCR , and it pays for undergraduate study for refugees in their country of asylum.
In Ethiopia, DAFI supported around 300 Eritrean refugee students as of 2018, alongside roughly 1,300 sponsored directly by the Ethiopian government, according to Inside Higher Ed . Current intake numbers are not published. Sudan's DAFI program also receives applications from Eritrean refugees alongside other nationalities. If you are an Eritrean refugee in a country that hosts DAFI, apply through the local UNHCR office rather than through any Eritrean institution.
Exit restrictions shape what's possible
Eritreans face tight restrictions on leaving the country legally, and national service is in practice open-ended. Human Rights Watch reports that although service is limited to 18 months on paper, Eritreans in reality remain in military or civilian assignments for years or decades, according to Human Rights Watch . This is why funded study in another African country is realistic mainly for people who have already left Eritrea and registered as refugees, rather than for students applying while still resident in the country.
Where to look
For a domestic college place: perform well in your Sawa national exam, then follow the placement Eritrea's Ministry of Education assigns you.
For DAFI: contact the UNHCR office in your country of asylum if you already hold refugee status.
Diaspora and church-linked support for individual students exists informally in some communities, but there is no verified, published national program to point to.