College of Staten Island scholarships and merit aid
CSI is a low-cost CUNY senior college (~$6,930/yr resident tuition) with essentially NO automatic stats-based merit award — every institutional scholarship flows through one annual, faculty-reviewed CSI Scholarship application that blends academic merit, service, and financial need.
Verified Jul 20262 months ago
The short answer
Is College of Staten Island worth a closer look?
College of Staten Island may be worth checking, but its awards do not follow a simple grades-and-scores chart. Start with the published scholarships below.
Merit tiers3See who qualifies
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.
Varies — amounts not published
CSI Scholarship (single annual application — all institutional awards)
Apply separatelyCan continue
GPA
Minimum 3.0 GPA (some exceptions); matriculated students only; Macaulay Honors College students excluded
See who qualifies and how to keep it+
Who qualifies
One application per year; the scholarship office automatically considers the applicant for every scholarship for which they are eligible. Scored by a Faculty Review Committee on academic merit and College/community service, also weighing financial need.
How to keep it
Renewal terms are not published on the scholarship pages. Most named awards are described as endowed funds where 'the available balance is awarded each year,' so amounts vary by fund and year.
Notes
This is the central pathway for CSI institutional scholarships and is NOT a stats-automatic award — it is a competitive, faculty-reviewed application that explicitly blends merit, service, and need. Categories include Nursing, Engineering, Business, International Travel/Study Abroad, and General Academic Excellence. No per-award dollar amounts are published. Deadline: last business day of February (next cycle opens October 2026).
$7,500…$7,500, $9,000 and $10,000 over three years, plus a $2,000 Discovery Fund
Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship
Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies+
Who qualifies
Undergraduates with at least four full-time semesters of academic work remaining; U.S. citizens or permanent residents no older than 21; competitive selection.
How to keep it
Three-year fellowship; stipend escalates each year ($7,500 / $9,000 / $10,000) contingent on continued participation.
Notes
A competitive, application-and-nomination fellowship administered through CSI (not an automatic award). Funds career-building summer internships. Next cycle Fall 2026; contact Michele Callahan, michele.callahan@csi.cuny.edu.
Undergraduates from underrepresented groups pursuing Ph.D.s and college-level teaching; competitive selection.
Notes
A research-pathway stipend (graduate-prep), not a tuition merit scholarship. Listed among the Verrazzano School grant opportunities; administered via the CUNY Graduate Center.
These are the rules we would flag for your family. Each comes from College of Staten Island's published information.
Outside awardsNo published displacement order
College of Staten Island's policy doesn't specify whether outside scholarships hit loans, grants, or only the COA ceiling. Get a written aid-office answer before chasing private awards.
Straight from the aid office
What College of Staten Island's aid office says
Per the Office of Student Financial Aid, College of Staten Island (CUNY), August 2026. How we verify
CSI Scholarship inquiries contact
Who should I contact with questions about the CSI Scholarship?
Questions about the CSI Scholarship should be directed to the college's Scholarship Office.
“If you have questions about the CSI Scholarship, please reach out to our Scholarship Office”
FAFSA/TAP filing help
How can I get help completing my FAFSA/TAP application?
Students needing help completing the FAFSA/TAP application can sign up for the Filing Lab to work with a representative from the office.
“Need help completing your FAFSA/TAP Application? Please sign up for out Filing Lab, where you can complete the application with a representative from our Office.”
CSI FAFSA school code
What is CSI's school code for the FAFSA application?
The FAFSA application should be completed using CSI school code 002698.
“Complete FAFSA Application - CSI school code 002698; Entrance Counseling, Sign electronic Master Promissory Note (e-MPN), Exit Counseling at www.studentaid.gov”
CSI TAP/Excelsior school code
What is CSI's school code for the NYS TAP or Excelsior application?
The NYS TAP or Excelsior Application should be completed using CSI school code 1417.
“Complete NYS TAP or Excelsior Application - CSI school code 1417 at www.hesc.ny.gov”
What families often miss
CSI publishes no GPA/SAT merit grid that pays you automatically on admission. Every institutional scholarship runs through one faculty-reviewed CSI Scholarship application that also weighs community service and financial need.
Verrazzano admission carries no automatic dollar award. The honors program's own page tells admitted students they are 'strongly encouraged to submit a CSI Scholarship application' — the money is a separate, competitive process.
The CSI Scholarship application is due the last business day of February each year; the next cycle opens in October 2026. Miss it and you forfeit consideration for the entire pooled set of institutional awards for that year.
Awards are scored on academic merit AND College/community service AND financial need together, so a high GPA alone does not guarantee an award.
Most CSI affordability comes from low CUNY tuition plus NY State TAP and the Excelsior Scholarship (free tuition for residents with family income up to $125,000), not from institutional merit money.
See costs and school data+
Who this school may work for
Cost-conscious New York students who want a very low published tuition (CUNY resident rate ~$6,930/yr) and are willing to file one merit-plus-need scholarship application; not a fit for students seeking a guaranteed automatic stats-based merit scholarship.
Published yearly cost: Approximately $6,930 for 2025-2026. Source
Cost and graduation facts
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at College of Staten Island, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at College of Staten Island, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$3,903
$30,001–$48,000
$4,473
$48,001–$75,000
$7,364
$75,001–$110,000
$9,923
$110,001+
$13,444
All income levels (average)
$5,579
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23
$7,490
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23
$15,440
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$5,579
That works out to roughly a 62% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $14,795 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
College of Staten Island 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
34%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
76%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$14,350 (~$152/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$53,501
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
62%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
10%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
No outside-scholarship displacement or stacking policy is published on CSI's financial-aid pages. The Office of Student Financial Aid page describes federal, NY State, and Excelsior aid but says nothing about how an outside scholarship reduces or coordinates with institutional aid.
CSI's financial-aid page does not state whether a third-party outside scholarship displaces grant, loan, or institutional aid, nor the order of reduction. Because CSI/CUNY institutional awards are largely need- and review-based rather than automatic merit grids, the standard CUNY over-award/packaging rules likely apply — but no public CSI page states this. A family with an outside award must ask the aid office directly.
Other College of Staten Island scholarships worth checking
These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.
AmountStipends totaling $2,000EligibilityFirst- or second-year undergraduates who are U.S. citizens, permanent residents, or eligible for full-time off-campus internships.
Two-year fellowship with career workshops and internship access; competitive, not automatic. Next cycle Fall 2026.
Amount$500 (summer/winter CSI-sponsored program) or $1,000 (semester-long CSI-sponsored program)EligibilityVerrazzano School Honors Program members in good standing for at least two semesters who complete their yearly VELA and community-service requirements.
One-time award; tied to a CSI-sponsored study-abroad program, not a general merit scholarship.
Does CSI give automatic merit scholarships to freshmen?
No. There is no published automatic stats-based merit grid. All institutional scholarships are awarded through one annual CSI Scholarship application reviewed by a Faculty Review Committee that weighs academic merit, College/community service, and financial need.
When is the CSI scholarship deadline?
The CSI Scholarship application is due the last business day of February each year. The next application cycle is expected to open in October 2026.
What GPA do I need to be considered?
A minimum 3.0 GPA (with some exceptions). Applicants must be matriculated; Macaulay Honors College students are excluded from this scholarship pool.
Does getting into the Verrazzano School come with money?
Not automatically. Verrazzano admission has no dollar award; admitted students are encouraged to file the separate CSI Scholarship application. Verrazzano does offer small study-abroad scholarships ($500/$1,000) and research stipends (up to $1,000).
How does an outside scholarship affect my CSI aid?
CSI does not publish an outside-scholarship displacement policy. Confirm directly with the Office of Student Financial Aid how a private award is packaged before you count on it.
See sources and other schools+
How College of Staten Island compares
133 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use unclear or unpublished displacement.
College of Staten Island is in a recognizable cluster (133 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
133 of 749 verified schools publish no clear displacement order.
College of Staten Island is one of them. The right move is the aid-office email script below, not a guess.
665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
College of Staten Island 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 College of Staten Island’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
