DAAD vs Erasmus+: a side-by-side comparison for 2027 European master's scholarships

DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service, funds international students to study in Germany, and its flagship offer is the Study Scholarship for master's candidates, sitting alongside smaller programmes like the Helmut Schmidt Programme for public policy and good governance, and Doctoral Research Grants for PhD stays. Erasmus+ runs on an entirely different model. It's the European Commission's mobility programme, and for full-degree funding its headline offer is the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master, a single scholarship that funds you to study across two to four universities in two to four EU countries at once, instead of settling you into a single place.

Side by side

Both cover tuition, health insurance and a monthly stipend, roughly €934 to €1,200 a month for DAAD, and around €1,400 a month plus travel allowances for Erasmus Mundus. On paper, Erasmus Mundus tends to be the more generous total package, largely because it also funds cross-country travel and installation costs that DAAD simply doesn't touch.

The timelines pull in genuinely different directions too, which matters more than it might seem. DAAD deadlines fall around September to October for the following year's intake, and it's a single application to one German university. Erasmus Mundus deadlines land around January to February instead, and because you're applying to a consortium of universities, not a single school, each one you target needs its own separate application. That timing difference is also what decides which programme actually fits you. If you're set on Germany specifically, want one stable base, and value having almost any German university to choose from, DAAD is the better lean. If multi-country study excites you, you want the top-tier brand and the more generous package, and you're willing to write several applications instead of one, Erasmus Mundus is worth the extra effort.

Can you apply for both?

Yes, and plenty of strong applicants do exactly that, since the deadlines genuinely don't clash, autumn for DAAD and winter for Erasmus. The only real cost is your own writing time: each Erasmus consortium is its own separate application, so budget for that before you commit to applying everywhere at once.

The common mistake is treating these as interchangeable. They fund different journeys entirely. Decide what you actually want, one country or many, before you write a single word.