Does CCNY give automatic merit scholarships based on GPA or test scores?

Largely no. The one genuinely automatic award is the Peter F. Vallone Academic Scholarship ($700/year, $350/semester) — no separate application, you're considered when you apply to CUNY — and it requires a NYC high-school 80(B) GPA, NYC residency, and a maintained 3.0 GPA. The biggest merit money comes from competitive admission to the Macaulay Honors College (full NY-resident tuition), not from a posted stats grid.

What's the largest merit award and who gets it?

The Macaulay Honors College tuition scholarship, which covers full tuition (fees and expenses excluded) for four years for New York State residents admitted to Macaulay. It's gated on selective honors admission, not a published GPA/test cutoff.

Do I have to apply separately for CCNY scholarships?

The Vallone award is automatic. For CCNY admissions scholarships (Tuschman and the named/high-school awards), you submit an interest form after you've been admitted, then accept your admission offer by the listed date, and you must submit FAFSA and TAP each year and enroll in at least 12 credits per semester to keep the award.

Can I stack CCNY scholarships with an outside award or Excelsior?

CCNY publishes no general outside-scholarship displacement formula. It does state that if you already receive Excelsior or another 'last-dollar' award, you are not eligible for additional admissions scholarships. Confirm with the financial aid office how a private outside scholarship affects your specific package.

The City College of New York · New York

City College of New York (CUNY) scholarships and merit aid

CCNY is a low-cost public CUNY campus where the biggest merit play is admission to the Macaulay Honors College (full New York State resident tuition for four years); most other named institutional awards are small or unpublished in dollars, and pure-merit auto-awards are limited to the $700/yr Peter F. Vallone Academic Scholarship.

Verified Jul 20262 months ago

The short answer

Is City College of New York (CUNY) worth a closer look?

City College of New York (CUNY) awards automatic merit on admission. City College of New York (CUNY) does not publish a GPA or test chart, so you cannot self-calculate the dollars.

Merit tiers61 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.

Full tuition for New York State res…Full tuition for New York State residents (fees and expenses not covered)

Macaulay Honors College — Tuition Scholarship

Apply separatelyCan continue

See who qualifies

Who qualifies

Admission to the Macaulay Honors College (selective; separate honors admission). Tuition scholarship available only to New York State residents as defined by CUNY; must complete the FAFSA and a NYS TAP application.

How to keep it

Covers four years of undergraduate study; also covers a limited number of summer/winter classes between the start of year one and the end of the 8th semester. Does not include fees. Renewal/GPA terms are set by Macaulay and not stated on this page.

Notes

This is the single largest merit award available through CCNY, but it is gated on competitive Macaulay admission, not on a published GPA/test cutoff. Non-NY-residents do not get the tuition scholarship. The package also includes a Cultural Passport and access to the Opportunities Fund (study abroad / internships / experiential learning).

Source

$700 per year ($350 per semester)

Peter F. Vallone Academic Scholarship Program

Based on grades or scoresCan continue

GPA: Graduate from a NYC high school with at least an 80 (B) GPA; maintain at least a 3.0 cumulative GPA in college

See who qualifies and how to keep it

Who qualifies

US Citizen / Eligible Non-Citizen; resident of New York City; enroll at a CUNY college full-time within one year of graduating high school; attend CUNY before any other postsecondary institution

How to keep it

Must maintain continuous full-time (12 credits) enrollment within CUNY and a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0, calculated once a year at the end of the Spring semester. Maximum 6 semesters for an associate degree, 8 semesters for a bachelor's degree.

Notes

Genuinely automatic merit award — no separate application; students are considered when they apply for admission to CUNY. State-funded NYC residency award (administered system-wide), not a CCNY-specific competitive scholarship. The 80(B) requirement is a high-school admission threshold, not a stat that scales the amount.

Source

$5k per year over four years

Tuschman Family Scholarship (Ambassador Program)

Apply separatelyCan continue

See who qualifies

Who qualifies

Promising incoming students with financial need who can serve the college as admissions ambassadors. Not pure merit — financial need is a stated criterion and there is a service requirement.

How to keep it

Described as '$5k per year over the course of 4 years.' Service obligation as an admissions ambassador; specific renewal GPA not stated on the page.

Notes

Mixed merit/need plus a service obligation. Incoming students submit an interest form after being admitted to CCNY. Note the general admissions-scholarship eligibility rules: submit FAFSA and TAP each year, enroll in at least 12 credits/semester, and students already receiving Excelsior or other 'last-dollar' awards are NOT eligible for additional admissions scholarships.

Source

$6,000 total…$6,000 total, paid over three years ($1,000 year 1, $2,000 year 2, $3,000 year 3)

Grove School of Engineering (GSOE) Merit Scholarship

Apply separatelyCan continue

GPA: Maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 at the end of each academic semester

See who qualifies and how to keep it

Who qualifies

Matriculated undergraduate in a Grove School of Engineering major; recipient must accept the offer by the stated deadline

How to keep it

Must maintain full-time enrollment (minimum 12 credits) as a matriculated GSOE-major undergraduate making satisfactory progress, with a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 at the end of each semester. Funding is forfeited for withdrawing from a semester, dropping below full-time, or taking a semester off (absent an approved medical/family emergency), and for academic-integrity or disciplinary violations.

Notes

Small departmental award structured to escalate each year ($1,000 → $2,000 → $3,000). The 2025 cycle required accepting the offer by Friday, October 3, 2025, 11:59 PM EST — a fixed acceptance deadline that, if missed, forfeits the award. Engineering applicants should confirm the current-year version of this scholarship and its acceptance deadline.

Source

Amount not published…Amount not published (priority registration, intensive mentoring, and 'scholarship')

City College Honors Program

Apply separatelyCan continue

See who qualifies

Who qualifies

High-achieving students across all disciplines; selective honors admission

How to keep it

No renewal terms published; no dollar amount published.

Notes

The official page lists the benefit only as 'scholarship' alongside priority registration and intensive mentoring; it does NOT publish a dollar figure. Treated as a benefit/honors track rather than a quantified merit award — ask the honors office for the actual stipend/scholarship dollar value.

Source

Varies — amounts not published

City College of New York Scholarship Program (general institutional awards)

Apply separatelyCan continue

See who qualifies

Who qualifies

Open to entering freshmen, transfer and continuing students; selection criteria may include academic performance, test scores, creative promise, financial need, campus involvement, community service, volunteer activities, or leadership

How to keep it

No amounts, GPA cutoffs, or renewal terms published on the catalog page.

Notes

This is an umbrella description of a pool of institutional scholarships, not a single named award. No dollar amounts are published; selection mixes merit and need. Named awards listed on the admissions-scholarships page (Olinger Lindner, Nurick Lester, Tashlick, Rosenthal Walnick, Weiss, Epstein, plus high-school-specific awards such as Jack Feinstein/Brooklyn Tech, Celia Portnoy/Stuyvesant, Brodsky/Bronx Science) likewise publish NO dollar amounts.

Source

See what could change an award

Rules that could change the answer

These are the rules we would flag for your family. Each comes from City College of New York (CUNY)'s published information.

Renewal rulePeter F. Vallone Academic Scholarship Program: renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Must maintain continuous full-time (12 credits) enrollment within CUNY and a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0, calculated once a year at the end of the Spring semester. Maximum 6 semesters for an associate degree, 8 semesters for a bachelor's degree. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.

What families often miss

Assuming Macaulay's 'full tuition' covers your whole bill.
The Macaulay tuition scholarship covers tuition only and explicitly excludes fees and expenses. You still owe the student activity fee, technology fee, and consolidated fee, plus living costs, books, and transportation. It is also limited to New York State residents.
Expecting a published GPA/SAT merit grid like a private college.
CCNY is a low-cost public CUNY campus. Apart from the automatic $700/yr Vallone award, it does NOT publish a stats-based merit scholarship grid — the largest merit money comes from competitive honors admission (Macaulay), not a posted score cutoff.
Treating the Tuschman ($5K/yr) or City College Honors as pure no-strings merit.
Tuschman requires financial need AND service as an admissions ambassador. City College Honors publishes no dollar amount at all — its 'scholarship' value is unspecified. Don't budget around numbers the school hasn't published.
Already holding Excelsior (or another 'last-dollar' award) and still counting on CCNY admissions scholarships.
CCNY states that students already receiving Excelsior or other 'last-dollar' awards are NOT eligible for additional admissions scholarships.
Missing the engineering scholarship's fixed acceptance deadline.
The Grove (GSOE) $6,000 merit scholarship had to be accepted via a form by a hard date (Oct 3, 2025 for that cycle). Miss the acceptance deadline and the award is forfeited; confirm the current-year deadline.

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

Cost-sensitive students (especially NYC/NY State residents) who already see CUNY as affordable and want the merit upside concentrated in honors admission (Macaulay full tuition, City College Honors mentoring) rather than a published GPA/test scholarship grid. Strong NYC high-school graduates pick up the automatic $700/yr Vallone award; engineering admits can layer the small Grove (GSOE) merit scholarship.

Cost and graduation facts

Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at City College of New York (CUNY), what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.

Average annual net price by family income at City College of New York (CUNY), academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$1,251
$30,001–$48,000	$2,990
$48,001–$75,000	$6,811
$75,001–$110,000	$9,982
$110,001+	$12,806
All income levels (average)	$3,776

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Total cost of attendance (sticker), AY 2021-22: $14,403
Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23: $7,340
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23: $15,290
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $3,776

That works out to an average 74% discount off the sticker price above — both figures come from the same federal AY 2021-22 Scorecard report, not a number the school itself published.

City College of New York (CUNY) is a public school; Scorecard's net price and cost of attendance figures cover 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: 57%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 79%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $11,990 (~$127/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $66,039
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 73%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 8%

How to read these numbers

Net price and cost of attendance reflect only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not City College of New York (CUNY)'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 City College of New York (CUNY)'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 and cost of attendance are academic year 2021-22 figures. 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 other scholarships and cost examples

If your student brings another scholarship

Outside scholarships only trigger an aid adjustment if total aid would exceed the cost of attendance (or the student's aid eligibility cap); below that ceiling, awards are not displaced.

Verified policy language (2026-07-02): Please note that accepting an external scholarship may reduce or replace other forms of financial aid. If your cost of attendance has not been fully met, the scholarship will likely have little or no impact on your aid package. However, if your accepted aid already equals your demonstrated need, we will adjust your aid package—typically by reducing loans or federal work-study—by the amount of the scholarship. If necessary, we may also reduce gift aid to ensure that your total aid, including the scholarship, does not exceed your cost of attendance.

Source

Other City College of New York (CUNY) scholarships worth checking

These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.

Named CCNY admissions scholarships (Olinger Lindner, Nurick Lester, Tashlick, Rosenthal Walnick, Weiss, Epstein)

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityListed among CCNY admissions scholarships; criteria not detailed on the public page.

No dollar amounts published; require submitting an interest form after admission. Confirm amounts with the scholarship office.

Source

High-school-specific scholarships (Jack Feinstein/Brooklyn Tech, Celia Portnoy/Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech-CCNY, Stuyvesant-CCNY Honors, Brodsky/Bronx Science)

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityGraduates of specific NYC specialized high schools.

Described without dollar amounts. Pipeline awards tied to specific feeder high schools.

Source

City College of New York (CUNY) merit aid FAQ

Does CCNY give automatic merit scholarships based on GPA or test scores?
Largely no. The one genuinely automatic award is the Peter F. Vallone Academic Scholarship ($700/year, $350/semester) — no separate application, you're considered when you apply to CUNY — and it requires a NYC high-school 80(B) GPA, NYC residency, and a maintained 3.0 GPA. The biggest merit money comes from competitive admission to the Macaulay Honors College (full NY-resident tuition), not from a posted stats grid.
What's the largest merit award and who gets it?
The Macaulay Honors College tuition scholarship, which covers full tuition (fees and expenses excluded) for four years for New York State residents admitted to Macaulay. It's gated on selective honors admission, not a published GPA/test cutoff.
Do I have to apply separately for CCNY scholarships?
The Vallone award is automatic. For CCNY admissions scholarships (Tuschman and the named/high-school awards), you submit an interest form after you've been admitted, then accept your admission offer by the listed date, and you must submit FAFSA and TAP each year and enroll in at least 12 credits per semester to keep the award.
Can I stack CCNY scholarships with an outside award or Excelsior?
CCNY publishes no general outside-scholarship displacement formula. It does state that if you already receive Excelsior or another 'last-dollar' award, you are not eligible for additional admissions scholarships. Confirm with the financial aid office how a private outside scholarship affects your specific package.

See sources and other schools

How City College of New York (CUNY) compares

235 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use cost-of-attendance cap displacement.
City College of New York (CUNY) 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.
City College of New York (CUNY) 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 City College of New York (CUNY)’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Policy pageCity College of New York (CUNY) stacking policy
Merit tiersMacaulay Honors College — Tuition Scholarship
Merit tiersPeter F. Vallone Academic Scholarship Program
Merit tiersTuschman Family Scholarship (Ambassador Program)
Merit tiersGrove School of Engineering (GSOE) Merit Scholarship

Compare with similar schools

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SUNY Brockport merit aid. New York public university — compare automatic merit, amounts, and stacking.

Keep exploring City College of New York (CUNY) merit aid

City College of New York (CUNY) scholarship stacking. Whether outside awards land as upside or quietly displace institutional aid.
Does City College of New York (CUNY) displace outside scholarships?. The dollar math on a $5,000 outside award, plus peer schools that handle it differently.
City College of New York (CUNY) four-year renewal rules. GPA floors, credit-hour pace, and the renewal cliffs that knock awards out by sophomore year.