Large urban private in Boston with a December 1 merit-application gate and a published $98K cost of attendance — merit awards exist but are competitively allocated and not driven by published stat cutoffs.
Verified Jul 20261 month ago· CC-1
The short answer
Is BU worth a closer look?
BU may be worth checking, but its awards do not follow a simple grades-and-scores chart. Start with the published scholarships below.
Merit tiers5See who qualifies
First-year students with school awards22%First-year students, CDS 2025-2026
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.
Not published — confirm directly wi…Not published — confirm directly with BU Admissions
Trustee Scholars Program
Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies+
Who qualifies
Top-tier competitive scholarship for first-year applicants. Requires the regular admission application by December 1; BU's first-year-merit page describes its merit awards as recognizing 'academic, athletic, or artistic achievement, regardless of calculated financial need.'
How to keep it
Continued academic standing per BU's award terms; verify in the offer letter.
Notes
Widely cited in third-party sources as BU's flagship full-tuition award, but BU does not publish the Trustee Scholars Program by name or its dollar value on its public scholarship pages. Treat the amount as confirmation-pending until verified directly with bu.edu/admissions. Re-checked 2026-05-13: BU's public scholarship and first-year-merit pages still do not name the Trustee Scholars Program or publish a dollar value; bu.edu/admissions/why-bu/trustee-scholars-program/ and bu.edu/admissions/tuition-aid/trustee-scholars/ both return HTTP 404.
BU explicitly says, 'the only requirement is to complete your application for admission by December 1.' Applying after December 1 — even on a normal admission timeline — removes you from BU's merit-scholarship pool entirely.
BU's overall published merit posture for first-year students is competitive and narrow, not stat-driven. Most of BU's $200M+ aid budget is need-based. Families who don't qualify for need-based aid and don't win the Trustee Scholars Program often see sticker-or-near-sticker pricing.
CFA performance scholarships are available only to applicants who audition or submit a portfolio to the College of Fine Arts by January 4. Students admitted to other BU colleges with arts interests cannot retroactively claim CFA performance aid.
See costs and school data+
Who this school may work for
Strong students who can submit a competitive application by December 1 and either fit a niche aid category (CFA performing arts, ROTC, Methodist clergy family) or have a top-of-class academic profile suitable for the school's flagship Trustee Scholars Program.
Cost of attendance$98,419 for 2026-2027Each bar is the full published cost for that scenario, sized against the highest figure so totals compare at a glance.
On-campus$98,419
$75K
$21K
Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Books
Travel
Personal
Private; single on-campus scenario. Health insurance required by MA law but billed separately and not included.
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at BU, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at BU, academic year 2021-22
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$9,500
$30,001–$48,000
$9,342
$48,001–$75,000
$11,778
$75,001–$110,000
$22,517
$110,001+
$47,504
All income levels (average)
$24,402
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23
$68,102
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$24,402
That works out to roughly a 72% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $86,285 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
Outcomes for students who enrolled here
Graduation rate (150% of normal time), 2016 cohort
89%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
95%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$23,250 (~$246/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$83,238
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
21%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
19%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
Outside scholarships reduce self-help components of the aid package before institutional grants or scholarships. Adjustments are made only if required by federal or state regulations or if total aid exceeds federal need-based eligibility (COA minus SAI) or BU's published cost of attendance.
BU's private-scholarship policy page (verified 2026-07-23) states its 'primary objective is to allow students to retain the maximum possible benefit from their outside scholarship by reducing self-help components of your financial aid package before reducing institutional grant or scholarship assistance.' Outside awards must be reported to BU Financial Assistance in writing. The page does not itemize which self-help component (loans vs. work-study) is reduced first, and it carries an asterisked note 'Effective for awards beginning in the 26/27 Academic Year.' A separate rule — internal combinability, not outside displacement — says an additional award from another entity within BU reduces the need-based grant by that amount.
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From BU’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
22%of admitsget merit
Average award$42,227Covers ~43% of $98,419 cost of attendance
At BU, roughly 1 in 5 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $42,227 — about 43% of total cost.
What is the deadline for Boston University merit scholarships?
BU is explicit: 'the only requirement is to complete your application for admission by December 1.' That date applies to both the Early Decision pool and the Regular Decision pool for merit-scholarship consideration. Applying later disqualifies you from BU's institutional merit aid.
Does BU publish merit scholarship dollar amounts by stat tier?
No. Unlike schools that publish a fixed ladder of automatic merit by GPA/test score, BU evaluates merit holistically and does not publish stat cutoffs. Of BU's named first-year merit awards, only the Methodist Clergy Scholarship (half tuition) has a publicly stated dollar amount; the Trustee Scholars Program is widely described as full-tuition but BU does not confirm a value on its public scholarship pages.
How much does Boston University actually cost?
BU's 2026-27 published cost of attendance is $98,419 — $73,024 tuition, $13,170 housing, $7,570 food, $1,570 fees, plus about $3,085 for books, personal, and transportation. That's near the top of the four-year US private-college sticker range.
Is the Trustee Scholars Program at BU automatic?
No. The Trustee Scholars Program requires both BU's regular admission application by December 1 AND a separate Trustee Scholarship application with additional essays. Even applicants with very strong stats must opt in to the Trustee process — it is not awarded passively.
Should I expect merit aid from BU if I'm a strong student without financial need?
Probably not at scale. BU directs the majority of its aid budget to need-based grants. Strong applicants without need who don't win a Trustee Scholarship or fit a niche category (CFA, ROTC, athletic, Methodist clergy) commonly receive little or no institutional aid.
See sources and other schools+
How BU compares
147 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use loan-first displacement.
BU is in a recognizable cluster (147 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
667 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
BU is one of them. The cohort minority (82 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 BU’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
