Will my Champlain scholarship decrease over time?

No — under the Count-On-It Financial Aid Guarantee, your merit scholarship never declines for four years as long as you remain enrolled full-time and maintain a 2.0 GPA (with carve-outs for tuition benefits, Tuition Exchange, Yellow Ribbon, and need-based federal/state-linked funds).

Champlain· Renewal Rules

Keeping Champlain’s Merit Aid for Four Years

What the financial-aid office actually requires after freshman year: minimum GPA, credit-hour pace, and the cliffs that quietly downgrade families mid-degree.

Verified Jun 2026today· COWORK

At a glance

Renewable tiers: 5 of 5
One-time tiers: 0
Tiers with published renewal terms: 5
Renewal risk profile: low

Renewal risk profile

Champlain's published renewal rules cluster around a 3.0 floor with no major-GPA gating, which is survivable for the typical freshman with steady study habits. The risk is non-renewal due to enrollment status (dropping below full-time), not GPA.

First-Year Merit Scholarship: 2.0 GPA
Transfer Merit Scholarship: 2.0 GPA
Leahy Center Scholar Program: See notes
Champlain Visit Scholarship: See notes
FAFSA Scholarship: See notes

Renewal terms by tier

First-Year Merit Scholarship
$18,000-$34,000 per year
Entry requirements: Holistic — no published stat grid GPA
To keep it: Count-On-It guarantee: renewed annually for four years and never declines as long as the student is enrolled full-time and maintains a 2.0 GPA (prorated for less-than-full-time). First bachelor's degree only; not transferable to online programs.
Source: https://www.champlain.edu/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships/
Transfer Merit Scholarship
$10,000-$25,000 per year
Entry requirements: Holistic — no published grid GPA
To keep it: Count-On-It guarantee applies (full-time + 2.0 GPA).
Source: https://www.champlain.edu/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships/
Leahy Center Scholar Program
$10,000 per year ($40,000 over four years)
To keep it: Renewable four-year program; guaranteed employment in the Leahy Center once certain employment requirements are met.
Source: https://www.champlain.edu/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships/
Champlain Visit Scholarship
$4,000 total ($1,000 per year, applied toward tuition)
To keep it: $1,000 each year you're enrolled.
Source: https://www.champlain.edu/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships/
FAFSA Scholarship
$500 per year
To keep it: Must file the FAFSA each year to continue receiving it.
Source: https://www.champlain.edu/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships/

How families lose this aid

Letting your GPA drop below 2.0 or going part-time
The guarantee holds only while you are enrolled full-time and maintain a 2.0 GPA; Champlain funds are prorated for less-than-full-time enrollment.

Renewal questions families ask

Will my Champlain scholarship decrease over time?: No — under the Count-On-It Financial Aid Guarantee, your merit scholarship never declines for four years as long as you remain enrolled full-time and maintain a 2.0 GPA (with carve-outs for tuition benefits, Tuition Exchange, Yellow Ribbon, and need-based federal/state-linked funds).

Rules that bite at Champlain

The renewal trip wires we'd flag in a custom playbook, derived from Champlain's own tier rules and not generic advice.

renewalFirst-Year Merit Scholarship: renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Count-On-It guarantee: renewed annually for four years and never declines as long as the student is enrolled full-time and maintains a 2.0 GPA (prorated for less-than-full-time). First bachelor's degree only; not transferable to online programs. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.

How Champlain compares across our verified dataset

247 of 272 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Champlain is one of them. The cohort minority (25 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 renewal claim is checked against Champlain’s own published materials.