Arkansas State University · Arkansas

Arkansas State scholarships and merit aid

Arkansas State offers merit awards to both Arkansas residents and out-of-state students.

Verified Jul 20262 months ago

The short answer

Is Arkansas State worth a closer look?

Arkansas State is worth checking if your student has strong grades or scores. We found 4 published awards, and 4 are based on those numbers.

Merit tiers44 based on grades or scores

Research checkedJul 2026By our research team

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Published scholarships

These amounts and requirements come from the school’s own published pages. Open an award to see who qualifies and how to keep it.

Where you landAutomatic merit aid by ACT compositeEach bar marks the ACT score range that qualifies for the tier.

A State Inspire$6,000

ACT 25SAT 1210 · GPA 3.5

Out Of State ScholarshipAmount not published

ACT 24SAT 1160 · GPA 3

A State Enrichment$4,000

ACT 21SAT 1060 · GPA 3

Not on this ladder: A State Endeavor — application required, holistic, or scored on a different axis.

View as table

Tier	ACT composite	Award
A State Inspire	25	$6,000
Out Of State Scholarship	24	Amount not published
A State Enrichment	21	$4,000

$2,000

A State Endeavor

Based on grades or scoresCan continue

GPA: 3
SAT: 990
ACT: 19

See who qualifies and how to keep it

How to keep it

Maintain 3 GPA

Source

$6,000

A State Inspire

Based on grades or scoresCan continue

GPA: 3.5
SAT: 1210
ACT: 25

See who qualifies and how to keep it

How to keep it

Maintain 3 GPA

Source

Amount not published

Out Of State Scholarship

Based on grades or scoresCan continue

GPA: 3
SAT: 1160
ACT: 24

Source

$4,000

A State Enrichment

Based on grades or scoresCan continue

GPA: 3
SAT: 1060
ACT: 21

See who qualifies and how to keep it

How to keep it

Maintain 3 GPA

Source

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

This is a good fit for students from Arkansas and neighboring states who want merit recognition alongside their admission.

Published yearly cost: Approximately $29,854 for 2026-2027. Source

Cost and graduation facts

Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Arkansas State, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.

Average annual net price by family income at Arkansas State, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$10,098
$30,001–$48,000	$9,255
$48,001–$75,000	$12,205
$75,001–$110,000	$15,839
$110,001+	$16,444
All income levels (average)	$12,366

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23: $8,090
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23: $14,522
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $12,366

That works out to roughly a 51% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $25,082 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).

Arkansas State is a public school; Scorecard's net price figure covers in-state, Title-IV-aid-recipient payers only — there is no comparable federal figure for out-of-state students.

Outcomes for students who enrolled here

Graduation rate (150% of normal time), 2016 cohort: 55%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 78%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $20,500 (~$217/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $42,617
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 44%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 45%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not Arkansas State's full student body.
Published tuition is the catalog sticker price for all students, not a Title IV-only figure.
Graduation rate reflects the entire first-time, full-time, degree-seeking cohort — not only students who received Title IV aid.
Retention rate reflects all first-time, full-time, bachelor's-seeking students — not only Title IV aid recipients.
Median debt reflects only completers who took out federal student loans — not Arkansas State's full graduating class, and not limited to first-time, full-time students.
Median earnings reflect Title IV aid recipients who entered college and were working (not enrolled) roughly a decade later — not necessarily the graduating cohort, and not a recent graduate's paycheck.
Pell grant and federal loan participation covers first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students only.
Net price blends need-based aid and merit aid together — it is not a merit-specific estimate. It shows what similar-income families actually paid on average after every kind of aid, not what a strong-stats student could win in merit dollars alone. Treat it as cost context, not a merit forecast — a MeritPlaybook models merit aid specifically for your student’s own stats, which this net-price figure cannot do.

None of this is current-year data — the U.S. Department of Education reports it on a delay, and different figures below come from different reporting years. Net price is an academic year 2021-22 figure. Published tuition reflects the 2022-23 academic year. Graduation rate reflects the Fall 2016 entering, full-time, first-time, degree/certificate-seeking cohort; completion measured within 150% of normal time (~6 years for a bachelor's degree). IPEDS Graduation Rates component (C150_4). Retention reflects the Fall 2021 full-time, first-time, bachelor's-seeking cohort retained into the following fall. IPEDS Fall Enrollment component (RET_FT4). Median debt reflects the NSLDS FY2020 and FY2021 pooled completer cohorts (GRAD_DEBT_MDN, GRAD_DEBT_MDN10YR_SUPP). Median earnings reflect the Treasury-matched cohort entering college in AY2009-10 or AY2010-11, earnings measured 10 years later in calendar years 2020 and 2021, inflation-adjusted to 2022 dollars (MD_EARN_WNE_P10).

Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard.

See sources and other schools

How Arkansas State compares

665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Arkansas State is one of them. The cohort minority (84 schools) only awards one-year scholarships, which means the four-year value families assume on a brochure quote isn't guaranteed at every school.

Sources used on this page

Every claim is checked against Arkansas State’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Cost of attendanceArkansas State cost-of-attendance worksheet
Merit tiersA State Endeavor

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Keep exploring Arkansas State merit aid

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