Why funding first
The conventional sequence — choose a university, apply, then look for money — produces expensive outcomes. Scholarship quotas are attached to specific universities, specific countries and specific disciplines. If you choose the university before you understand the quota structure, you have usually already decided whether you can afford it.
So we work in the opposite order. Which award are you eligible for? Which institutions can deliver it? Does the stipend actually cover the city where that institution sits? Only then does the shortlist make sense.
What we cover
Six Chinese Government Scholarship entry routes, ten provincial and municipal schemes, six university-level programmes and four research fellowships — twenty routes in total. For each one we describe the coverage, the hard eligibility limits and the practical reason it rejects people. Where an award is administered through a university rather than a central portal, we say so, because that detail decides how you apply.
What we are not
We do not award scholarships, we are not a government agency, and we cannot influence a committee. Nobody can. What we can do is tell you which route your profile plausibly fits, what the file needs to contain, and when the real deadlines fall — which are almost always earlier than the published ones.
On stipend numbers
Stipend rates are set nationally and are quoted here as the standard monthly figures: 2,500 CNY for bachelor's, 3,000 for master's, 3,500 for PhD. What those numbers mean in practice depends entirely on the city, which is why every cost table on this site is paired with a verdict on whether the stipend covers it. A full award in Shanghai and a full award in Harbin are not the same award in real terms.
Editorial policy
Everything here is compiled by our own team from university catalogues, funding rules and the experience of students who have been through the process. Figures are given as indicative ranges with a note to confirm the current amount with the awarding body, because rates and rules change annually. Where a rule is a hard threshold, we state it as one rather than softening it into advice.