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 does your student land?
Presidential Scholar (Automatic Merit)$8,000 per yearAutomaticRenewable
Published awardAcademic thresholds
Presidential Scholar (Automatic Merit)
$8,000 per year
Published amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.
GPA
Weighted 4.0
SAT
1370
ACT
30
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Presidential Scholar (Automatic Merit)
Who qualifies
Qualify with ANY ONE of: weighted GPA 4.0, Class rank Top 2%, or ACT/SAT 30/1370. Awards are based on the student's single highest metric of either ACT/SAT, Class Rank, or GPA. No separate application.
How to keep it
Renewal GPA (CSU Pueblo): 3.5. Renewable up to 3 additional years with the GPA above and full-time enrollment.
Worth knowing
Automatic for first-time freshmen; no separate application. Submit admissions application, high school transcripts, and ACT/SAT scores (if applicable) by May 1. Cannot be combined with other institutional scholarships except the First Generation Scholarship.
Distinguished Scholar (Automatic Merit)$5,000 per yearAutomaticRenewable
Published awardAcademic thresholds
Distinguished Scholar (Automatic Merit)
$5,000 per year
Published amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.
GPA
Weighted 3.75
SAT
1280
ACT
27
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Distinguished Scholar (Automatic Merit)
Who qualifies
Qualify with ANY ONE of: weighted GPA 3.75, Class rank Top 5%, or ACT/SAT 27/1280. Single highest metric used. No separate application.
How to keep it
Renewal GPA (CSU Pueblo): 3.0. Renewable up to 3 additional years with the GPA above and full-time enrollment.
Worth knowing
Automatic for first-time freshmen; no separate application. Submit application, transcripts, and ACT/SAT scores (if applicable) by May 1. Cannot be combined with other institutional scholarships except the First Generation Scholarship.
Promising Scholar (Automatic Merit)$3,000 per yearAutomaticRenewable
Published awardAcademic thresholds
Promising Scholar (Automatic Merit)
$3,000 per year
Published amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.
GPA
Weighted 3.50
SAT
1180
ACT
24
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Promising Scholar (Automatic Merit)
Who qualifies
Qualify with ANY ONE of: weighted GPA 3.50, Class rank Top 15%, or ACT/SAT 24/1180. Single highest metric used. No separate application.
How to keep it
Renewal GPA (CSU Pueblo): 3.0. Renewable up to 3 additional years with the GPA above and full-time enrollment.
Worth knowing
Automatic for first-time freshmen; no separate application. Submit application, transcripts, and ACT/SAT scores (if applicable) by May 1. Cannot be combined with other institutional scholarships except the First Generation Scholarship.
First Generation Scholarship$1,000 per yearAutomaticRenewable
Published awardAcademic thresholds
First Generation Scholarship
$1,000 per year
Published amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.
GPA
3.0 HS or transfer GPA
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for First Generation Scholarship
Who qualifies
First-generation students (neither parent earned a bachelor's degree); file FAFSA by May 1; full-time. This is the ONLY institutional award that may be combined with the Automatic Merit scholarship.
How to keep it
Renewable with 3.0 GPA; full-time enrollment required.
Worth knowing
The key stacking exception: this $1,000 award is the only institutional scholarship that can be combined with the automatic Presidential/Distinguished/Promising merit award. Requires the FAFSA by May 1.
Commitment to Colorado$1,000 per yearAutomaticRenewable
Published awardAcademic thresholds
Commitment to Colorado
$1,000 per year
Published amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.
GPA
3.0+
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Commitment to Colorado
Who qualifies
Colorado residents who file the FAFSA by May 1, receive a Pell Grant, and have a 3.0+ GPA. Pell eligibility makes this partly need-linked.
How to keep it
Renewal terms not stated on the page; tied to continued Pell/residency eligibility.
Worth knowing
Need-linked (requires Pell Grant eligibility) but stat-gated on a 3.0+ GPA. Per the official scholarships page, this award is NOT stackable with the Automatic Merit scholarship — like every institutional award except the $1,000 First Generation Scholarship, you receive the larger of the two, not both.
Honors Program Scholarship$2,000 scholarship + up to $1,000 for room/boardNot automaticRenewable
Published awardOther selection criteria
Honors Program Scholarship
$2,000 scholarship + up to $1,000 for room/board
Variable or qualified amountNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
Start with the award’s published eligibility.
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Honors Program Scholarship
Who qualifies
Admitted Honors Program students. Cannot stack with Automatic Merit.
How to keep it
Renewal terms not stated on the page; tied to remaining in the Honors Program.
Worth knowing
A rule that bites: the Honors award CANNOT be combined with the Automatic Merit scholarship. An admitted Honors student must compare $2,000 (+ up to $1,000 room/board) against their automatic Presidential/Distinguished/Promising amount and take whichever is larger — the $8,000 Presidential award beats the Honors package.
International Merit Scholarship$8,000 per Academic YearNot automaticRenewable
Published awardOther selection criteria
International Merit Scholarship
$8,000 per Academic Year
Published award termsNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
Start with the award’s published eligibility.
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for International Merit Scholarship
Who qualifies
New international students.
How to keep it
Renewable up to four years for freshmen and two years for transfer or graduate students.
Worth knowing
Merit award for new international students; separate track from the domestic Automatic Merit grid.
4-Year Transfer Scholarship$3,000 per year (max 4 semesters)AutomaticRenewable
Published awardAcademic thresholds
4-Year Transfer Scholarship
$3,000 per year (max 4 semesters)
Published award termsAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.
GPA
3.25+
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for 4-Year Transfer Scholarship
Who qualifies
New transfers from a regionally accredited 4-year institution with a 3.25+ GPA.
How to keep it
Maximum 4 semesters.
Worth knowing
Transfer-specific automatic award; not for first-time freshmen.
Destination Scholarship (Transfer)$2,000 per year (max 4 semesters)AutomaticRenewable
Published awardAcademic thresholds
Destination Scholarship (Transfer)
$2,000 per year (max 4 semesters)
Published award termsAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.
GPA
3.0+
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Destination Scholarship (Transfer)
Who qualifies
New transfers with an AA/AS/AGS/AAS degree and 3.0+ GPA.
How to keep it
Maximum 4 semesters.
Worth knowing
Transfer-specific automatic award for associate-degree completers.
Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) Transfer Scholarship$1,500 per year (max 4 semesters)Not automaticRenewable
Published awardOther selection criteria
Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) Transfer Scholarship
$1,500 per year (max 4 semesters)
Published award termsNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
Start with the award’s published eligibility.
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) Transfer Scholarship
Who qualifies
New transfer students with verified PTK (Phi Theta Kappa) membership.
How to keep it
Maximum 4 semesters.
Worth knowing
Transfer award requiring verified Phi Theta Kappa honor-society membership.
Community College Connection Scholarship (Transfer)$1,000 per year (max 4 semesters)AutomaticRenewable
Published awardAcademic thresholds
Community College Connection Scholarship (Transfer)
$1,000 per year (max 4 semesters)
Published award termsAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.
GPA
3.25+
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Community College Connection Scholarship (Transfer)
Who qualifies
New Colorado resident transfer students with an associate degree and 3.25+ GPA.
How to keep it
Maximum 4 semesters.
Worth knowing
Transfer-specific automatic award for Colorado-resident associate-degree holders.
Living Learning Incentive$1,000 per year (up to 4 years)Not automaticRenewable
Published awardOther selection criteria
Living Learning Incentive
$1,000 per year (up to 4 years)
Variable or qualified amountNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
Start with the award’s published eligibility.
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Living Learning Incentive
Who qualifies
Nonresident, RISE, WUE, ThunderWolf Rate, and NM Reciprocal students living on campus.
How to keep it
Up to 4 years; requires living on campus.
Worth knowing
Housing-tied incentive for specific tuition-rate categories of nonresident students who live on campus.
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The fine print
Renewal rulePresidential Scholar (Automatic Merit): renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Renewal GPA (CSU Pueblo): 3.5. Renewable up to 3 additional years with the GPA above and full-time enrollment. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
Aid capHard $29,824 cost-of-attendance ceiling
Institutional aid at CSU Pueblo cannot push the package past $29,824. Big outside wins can mathematically reduce institutional grant once the ceiling is reached.
What makes CSU Pueblo different
CSU Pueblo guarantees every admitted Fall 2026 freshman an automatic, no-extra-application merit award on a single-best-metric grid — $3,000, $5,000, or $8,000 per year — but the catch is it cannot be stacked with any other institutional scholarship except the $1,000 First Generation award.
Merit tiers128 based on grades or scores
First-year students with school awards22%First-year students, CDS 2025-2026 (school-estimated)
Research checkedJul 2026By our research team
More than one award path
Separate the two paths.
Some awards use published academic thresholds. Others have different selection criteria. A score chart does not describe every award at this school.
Match the published criteria
Use all requirements together, including residency and the entering class.
Check the application dates
Confirm the current admission and scholarship deadlines directly with the school.
Know what happens next year
Check renewal, credit requirements and how other aid affects the award.
The fine print / Three questions to carry forward
Before you count on it.
Does it apply to us? Confirm the entering year, residency and every eligibility condition.
Can we keep it? Check renewal GPA, credits and how long the award lasts.
Can we combine it? Ask how outside scholarships and other school awards change the offer.
A printable research summary, source links and room for your questions.
See what could change an award+
Straight from the aid office
What CSU Pueblo's aid office says
Per the Financial Aid, Student Financial Services, Colorado State University Pueblo, August 2026. How we verify
Required info to access student account
What does the office need in order to look up my student's account?
The office needs the student's C# (student ID number) to pull up their account.
“We will need your students' C# to pull up their account.”
Communication with personal email
Can the office send my student's financial aid information to my personal parent email?
The office cannot send sensitive student information to a parent's personal email and directs correspondence to the student's school email due to Department of Education regulations.
“We are not able to send sensitive student information to a personal email, so please refer to your child's student email for all further correspondence per Department of Education Regulations.”
What families often miss
Automatic Merit cannot be combined with other institutional scholarships except the $1,000 First Generation Scholarship. The Honors Program scholarship is specifically non-stackable with Automatic Merit — you take the larger of the two, not both.
The admission deadline for the automatic scholarship is May 1. You must submit your admissions application, official high school transcripts, and ACT/SAT scores (if applicable) by May 1, and enroll full-time the fall semester immediately after graduation.
You qualify with ANY ONE of the three metrics on each tier's row, and the award is based on your single highest qualifying metric. A 4.0 weighted GPA alone earns the $8,000 Presidential award even without test scores.
The 2025-2026 estimated cost of attendance for a Colorado-resident undergraduate living on campus is $29,824 (tuition + general fees $12,566, housing & meals $12,548, books $1,470, transportation $1,512, other $1,728). Even the $8,000 Presidential award leaves roughly $21,000+/year before need-based aid. Out-of-state on-campus COA is $40,444.
If you are admitted using a self-reported GPA, you must submit an official transcript before your merit scholarship is finalized; if the official GPA differs, your scholarship amount may be adjusted.
Merit scholarships may be reduced if total aid exceeds the cost of attendance — winning a big outside award can displace institutional merit dollars rather than purely adding to them.
See costs and school data+
Who this school may work for
Cost-conscious students — especially Colorado residents and first-generation students — who want predictable, guaranteed, automatic merit money at an open-access public university; high stats (4.0 weighted GPA / ACT 30 / SAT 1370 / top 2%) unlock the top $8,000/year Presidential tier with no separate application.
Published yearly cost: Approximately $29,824 for 2025-2026. Source
Cost and graduation facts
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at CSU Pueblo, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at CSU Pueblo, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$9,374
$30,001–$48,000
$8,948
$48,001–$75,000
$10,961
$75,001–$110,000
$15,701
$110,001+
$12,858
All income levels (average)
$10,051
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23
$9,720
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23
$17,944
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$10,051
That works out to roughly a 58% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $23,937 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
CSU Pueblo 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
40%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
64%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$21,500 (~$228/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$55,563
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
50%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
34%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
The defining rule at CSU Pueblo: the automatic merit award (Presidential/Distinguished/Promising) CANNOT be combined with any other institutional scholarship, with the single exception of the $1,000 First Generation Scholarship. The Honors Program scholarship and the $1,000 Commitment to Colorado award are both explicitly called out as non-stackable with Automatic Merit. No published rule was found describing how third-party OUTSIDE scholarships displace institutional aid; the only related policy is that merit scholarships may be reduced if total aid exceeds cost of attendance.
Institutional stacking is largely prohibited: automatic merit + First Generation is the only sanctioned combination. Separately, merit scholarships may be reduced if total aid (including outside awards) exceeds the cost of attendance, which is a COA-cap behavior rather than a stated loan-first/grant-first order.
From the CSU Pueblo Common Data Set 2025-2026 (school-estimated figures):
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From CSU Pueblo’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$5,750Covers ~19% of $29,824 cost of attendance
At CSU Pueblo, roughly 1 in 5 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $5,750 — about 19% of total cost.
As filed in CSU Pueblo's CDS Section H2A: of 676 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 152 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $5,750. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 461 of 2,575, averaging $5,738. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
The 2025-2026 column is marked "estimated" in the school's own CDS filing — school-projected figures, not final audited counts.
Receive institutional merit22%First-year students, Common Data Set 2025-2026 (school-estimated)
Average merit award$5,750Across recipients, Common Data Set 2025-2026 (school-estimated)
These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.
AmountLast-dollar remaining in-state tuition (varies)EligibilityColorado residents, full-time, degree-seeking undergraduates with total family income of $70,000 or less (per FAFSA); maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA at CSU Pueblo.
NEED-BASED last-dollar tuition program — covers remaining in-state tuition after all state, federal, and institutional grants/scholarships; does NOT cover fees or housing. FAFSA (or CASFA) by May 1. Up to 4 years for freshmen, 2 years for transfers.
AmountVariesEligibilityColorado residents; maintain a minimum 2.5 term GPA; must have paid at least a portion of tuition or fees during the term of eligibility. Automatically identified from FAFSA/CASFA; complete financial aid application by May 1.
NEED-BASED state-linked program; no separate application.
AmountVaries (900+ donor scholarships)EligibilityAdmitted/current CSU Pueblo students; one application via PAWS, one essay.
Separate application required — opens December 1, priority deadline March 1. Single application routes to 900+ donor-funded scholarships (many with major-specific or Pueblo County criteria).
Do I have to apply separately for the automatic merit scholarships?
No. First-time freshmen are automatically considered for the Presidential ($8,000), Distinguished ($5,000), or Promising ($3,000) award based on their single highest qualifying metric (weighted GPA, ACT/SAT, or class rank). Just submit your admissions application, transcripts, and any test scores by May 1.
What is the deadline?
May 1 is the admission deadline for the automatic scholarship. The separate CSU Pueblo Foundation Scholarship application (900+ donor awards) opens December 1 with a March 1 priority deadline, and the FAFSA/CASFA priority date for need programs like Pack Promise and Colorado Promise is also May 1.
Can I combine the automatic merit award with other CSU Pueblo scholarships?
Generally no. Automatic Merit cannot be combined with other institutional scholarships, with the single exception of the $1,000 First Generation Scholarship. The Honors Program scholarship in particular cannot stack with Automatic Merit.
What GPA do I need to keep my merit scholarship?
Renewal requires a CSU Pueblo GPA of 3.5 for the Presidential award and 3.0 for the Distinguished and Promising awards, plus full-time enrollment, and the award is renewable for up to 3 additional years.
See sources and other schools+
How CSU Pueblo compares
235 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use cost-of-attendance cap displacement.
CSU Pueblo is in a recognizable cluster (235 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
CSU Pueblo 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.
132 of 749 verified schools publish a dedicated National Merit Finalist package.
CSU Pueblo is one of them. NMF packages typically carry their own stacking and renewal carve-outs separate from the standard automatic merit ladder; confirm those before assuming the headline NMF value is final.
Sources used on this page
Every claim is checked against CSU Pueblo’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
