What is the deadline for Presidential Scholarships?

Students must apply before the Early Action deadline to be eligible for the Presidential Scholarships.

What is the deadline for Presidential Scholarship?

Presidential Scholarship applicants must apply by the November 15 Early Action deadline to be eligible.

What is the deadline for Steven Dorfman Scholarship?

Steven Dorfman Scholarship applicants must apply by the November 15 Early Action deadline to be eligible.

California Lutheran University · California

Cal Lutheran scholarships and merit aid

Cal Lutheran extends merit aid broadly across first-years, transfers, artists, and church-connected students with renewable awards.

Verified Jun 20263 months ago

The short answer

Is Cal Lutheran worth a closer look?

Cal Lutheran awards automatic merit on admission. Cal Lutheran does not publish a GPA or test chart, so you cannot self-calculate the dollars.

Merit tiers123 based on grades or scores

Research checkedJun 2026By our research team

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Who this school may work for

Prospective students from Lutheran backgrounds and those without church ties alike will find merit pathways, especially transfer students and artists.

Published yearly cost: Approximately $79,295 for 2026-2027. Source

Cost and graduation facts

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

Average annual net price by family income at Cal Lutheran, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$22,161
$30,001–$48,000	$23,668
$48,001–$75,000	$24,318
$75,001–$110,000	$29,303
$110,001+	$38,364
All income levels (average)	$30,109

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $52,560
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $30,109

That works out to roughly a 56% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $68,426 (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: 70%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 79%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $21,669 (~$230/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $68,712
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 34%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 55%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not Cal Lutheran'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 Cal Lutheran'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.

Cal Lutheran merit aid FAQ

What is the deadline for Presidential Scholarships?
Students must apply before the Early Action deadline to be eligible for the Presidential Scholarships.
What is the deadline for Presidential Scholarship?
Presidential Scholarship applicants must apply by the November 15 Early Action deadline to be eligible.
What is the deadline for Steven Dorfman Scholarship?
Steven Dorfman Scholarship applicants must apply by the November 15 Early Action deadline to be eligible.

See sources and other schools

How Cal Lutheran compares

665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Cal Lutheran 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 Cal Lutheran’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Cost of attendanceCal Lutheran cost-of-attendance worksheet
Merit tiersAdmission Merit Scholarship Transfer

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