Large Vincentian Catholic private in Chicago whose four automatic academic scholarships — Presidential, Deans', DePaul Scholars', and St. Vincent DePaul — run $14,000 to $33,000 a year with no separate application, but Music and Theatre admits are excluded.
Verified Jul 20262 months ago
The short answer
Is DePaul worth a closer look?
DePaul is worth checking if your student has strong grades or scores. We found 1 published award, and one is based on those numbers.
Merit tiers11 based on grades or scores
Research checkedJul 2026By our research team
Free Merit Check
See what DePaul's published rules mean for your student. Takes 30 seconds.
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.
$14,000–$33,000 per year
Academic Scholarships (Presidential / Deans' / DePaul Scholars' / St. Vincent DePaul)
Based on grades or scoresCan continue
See who qualifies+
Who qualifies
Awarded automatically as part of the admission decision — no separate application. DePaul does not publish GPA or test-score cutoffs mapping to a specific tier. Students admitted to the School of Music or The Theatre School are not eligible for these academic scholarships.
How to keep it
Renewable for up to four consecutive years (12 quarters) of undergraduate study with good academic standing; must enroll full time each quarter and complete a minimum of 36 quarter hours across Fall, Winter, and Spring.
These are the rules we would flag for your family. Each comes from DePaul's published information.
Renewal ruleAcademic Scholarships (Presidential / Deans' / DePaul Scholars' / St. Vincent DePaul): renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Renewable for up to four consecutive years (12 quarters) of undergraduate study with good academic standing; must enroll full time each quarter and complete a minimum of 36 quarter hours across Fall, Winter, and Spring. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
Outside awardsNo published displacement order
DePaul'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.
What families often miss
DePaul states 'Students admitted to the School of Music or The Theatre School are not eligible for the academic scholarships listed below.' Those programs run their own talent-based aid through audition. A strong academic profile does not buy back the academic award if you enroll in Music or Theatre.
DePaul renews academic scholarships for up to 12 quarters only if you 'maintain good academic standing,' are 'enrolled full time each quarter,' and 'complete a minimum of 36 quarter hours for the Fall, Winter and Spring quarters.' Dropping below the full-time quarter pace can put the award at risk.
DePaul does not publish a stat-banded ladder mapping a GPA or test score to the Presidential vs. Deans' vs. Scholars' tier. Placement within the $14,000–$33,000 range is decided inside admission, so do not budget off an unofficial cutoff table.
See award cutoffs and special programs+
DePaul's four automatic academic scholarships — $14,000 to $33,000 a year
DePaul packages its core merit aid as one of four automatic academic scholarships: the Presidential Scholarship, Deans' Scholarship, DePaul Scholars' Award, and St. Vincent DePaul Scholarship. DePaul tells applicants 'You're automatically considered for one of our four academic scholarships...when you apply to DePaul. You do not need to submit a separate application.' The published range is '$14,000 to $33,000' annually, and DePaul says freshman award packages can reach 'up to $38,400 annually' once other aid is layered in. DePaul does not publish a stat-banded GPA/test ladder mapping a number to a tier — placement is decided inside admission. Two structural rules to plan around: scholarships renew for up to 12 quarters of good academic standing with a 36-quarter-hour full-time pace, and 'Students admitted to the School of Music or The Theatre School are not eligible for the academic scholarships listed below.'
Students wanting a big-city Catholic university where the core academic award is automatic on the admission decision. Strong for liberal arts, business, and computing applicants; Music and Theatre School admits should look to those schools' own scholarships instead.
Cost of attendance$74,574 for 2025-2026Each bar is the full published cost for that scenario, sized against the highest figure so totals compare at a glance.
On-campus$74,574
$48K
$20K
Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Books
Travel
Personal
First-year resident (on-campus) standard-college budget (Business/Communication/Computing/Liberal Arts/Education/Science & Health, entering class 2025). Tuition & fees = $46,776 tuition + $900 comprehensive fee. Travel/Personal split from the official COA detail page (transportation $1,263, misc. personal $4,635). Sums exactly to published $74,574 on-campus budget.
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at DePaul, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at DePaul, academic year 2021-22
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$27,359
$30,001–$48,000
$25,950
$48,001–$75,000
$28,687
$75,001–$110,000
$31,057
$110,001+
$37,092
All income levels (average)
$30,902
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23
$45,999
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$30,902
That works out to roughly a 51% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $63,052 (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
68%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
86%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$23,168 (~$246/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$68,751
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
34%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
47%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
DePaul requires students to report all outside scholarships and other external resources, and those resources are factored into eligibility for federal, state, and institutional aid — including tuition-restricted and need-based aid. DePaul's public compliance page does not publish a fixed order of reduction (loans first vs. institutional aid first), so families should confirm whether an outside award offsets institutional aid before counting on stacking.
DePaul's 'Complying with Terms & Conditions' page states outside resources 'will be factored into your eligibility for federal, state, and institutional aid, including tuition-restricted or need-based aid' and that adjustments are made if necessary, but it does not state whether loans/work-study are reduced before institutional aid. Confirm the reduction order with the Office of Financial Aid.
These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.
AmountMerit award packages up to $100,000 over four yearsEligibilityStudents who earn a 3.75 GPA or higher at the point of admission. Boosts the academic award package for high-GPA admits.
Do I have to apply separately for DePaul's academic scholarships?
No. DePaul says 'You're automatically considered for one of our four academic scholarships...when you apply to DePaul. You do not need to submit a separate application.' The four are the Presidential, Deans', DePaul Scholars', and St. Vincent DePaul scholarships.
How much is DePaul's academic merit aid?
DePaul publishes an annual range of '$14,000 to $33,000' for the four academic scholarships, and says freshman award packages can reach 'up to $38,400 annually' once other aid is included. It does not publish a GPA-to-dollar grid.
What keeps the academic scholarship for four years?
DePaul renews academic scholarships 'for up to four consecutive years (12 quarters) of undergraduate study if you maintain good academic standing,' provided you stay enrolled full time each quarter and complete at least 36 quarter hours across Fall, Winter, and Spring.
Are Music and Theatre applicants eligible?
No. DePaul states that 'Students admitted to the School of Music or The Theatre School are not eligible for the academic scholarships.' Those schools award their own performance/talent-based scholarships through audition.
Will an outside scholarship reduce my DePaul aid?
It can. DePaul requires you to report outside resources, which 'will be factored into your eligibility for federal, state, and institutional aid, including tuition-restricted or need-based aid.' The public page does not state whether loans are cut before institutional aid, so confirm the reduction order with the financial aid office.
See sources and other schools+
How DePaul compares
133 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use unclear or unpublished displacement.
DePaul 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.
DePaul 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.
DePaul 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 DePaul’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
