Get merit aid16%First-year students, CDS 2023-2024
Last verifiedJun 2026Analyst COWORK
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The merit-aid verdict at Lamar
Lamar publishes a clear automatic GPA/rank/test scholarship ladder from $8,000 up to $40,000 — but its two headline $100,000 awards (Presidential and Southeast Texas Legends) are competitive and require separately submitted materials by January 15.
Rules that bite at Lamar
The trip wires we'd flag in a custom playbook. Each is derived from Lamar's own published policy, not generic advice.
capHard $28,552 cost-of-attendance ceiling
Institutional aid at Lamar cannot push the package past $28,552. Big outside wins can mathematically reduce institutional grant once the ceiling is reached.
Common merit-aid mistakes at Lamar
The Honors apply page states students 'should separately submit materials for those scholarships to Office of Student Aid by January 15' — these top awards are competitive, not granted automatically from the grid.
Figures like $100,000, $40,000, or $8,000 are totals (the page does not state the period), not per-year awards; confirm the multi-year disbursement schedule with the Office of Student Aid.
Most tiers require a class rank (Top 10%/25%/50%) in addition to the GPA, OR a qualifying test score — though rank is waived for homeschool students and high schools that don't rank.
Hundreds of endowed/department scholarships require the supplemental LU Scholarship application in the myScholarships portal, and endowed awards are made only after the January 15 priority deadline.
The grid GPA cutoffs are calculated on a 5.0 weighted scale, so an unweighted GPA will understate where you fall.
Who this school is for
Top-decile Texas students with strong GPA and test scores — the automatic ladder rewards a clear GPA/rank/test grid, and the highest-stat applicants who apply separately by January 15 compete for the $100,000 awards.
Tuition / cost of attendance: Approximately $28,552 for Not stated on page (current). Source
Federal cost and outcome data
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Lamar, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at Lamar, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$7,568
$30,001–$48,000
$8,261
$48,001–$75,000
$8,545
$75,001–$110,000
$13,689
$110,001+
$16,292
All income levels (average)
$9,366
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23
$8,905
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23
$18,745
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$9,366
That works out to roughly a 58% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $22,254 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
Lamar 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
37%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
62%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$21,250 (~$225/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$49,652
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
56%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
43%
Institutional merit aid tiers
Every tier below is sourced to the school’s own published financial aid pages. Renewal terms apply only if the student maintains the stated GPA.
$100,000
Presidential Scholarship
ApplicationRenewable
GPA
4.40+ GPA (5.0 weighted scale) and Class Rank Top 10%
SAT
1330-1600 (alternative to GPA/rank)
ACT
29-36 (alternative to GPA/rank)
Requirements & details+
Eligibility
Qualify via 4.40+ GPA AND Top 10% rank, OR via SAT 1330-1600 / ACT 29-36. Students must separately submit materials for this scholarship to the Office of Student Aid by January 15. Class rank waived for homeschool/non-ranking schools.
Renewal terms
Renewal terms not published on the pages reviewed (the headline figure appears to be a multi-year total; disbursement schedule not stated).
Notes
Competitive — requires separately submitted materials by January 15, so not automatic. Total amount as displayed ($100,000); the page does not state the disbursement period.
Cardinal Elite 4.25+ & Top 10%; Academic Excellence 3.95+ & Top 25%; Distinguished 3.65-3.94 & Top 25%; University 3.50-3.64 & Top 50% (5.0 weighted scale)
SAT
Cardinal Elite 1330-1600; Academic Excellence 1200-1320; Distinguished 1080-1190; University 1010-1070
ACT
Cardinal Elite 29-36; Academic Excellence 25-28; Distinguished 21-24; University 19-21 (as an alternative to GPA/rank)
Requirements & details+
Eligibility
Qualify via GPA+rank OR test score. Class rank waived for homeschool/non-ranking schools. Awarded from the admissions application.
Renewal terms
Renewal terms not published (headline figures appear to be multi-year totals).
Notes
Stat-based ladder awarded from admissions data. Each headline amount is a total (period not stated on the page).
No specific institutional stacking/displacement policy was published on the pages reviewed. The cost-of-attendance page notes only that COA 'determines the maximum amount of financial aid you can receive' (a federal COA cap).
The Tuition and Fees / Cost of Attendance page states the COA 'determines the maximum amount of financial aid you can receive.' No rule addressing how private/outside scholarships displace Lamar awards was found.
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From Lamar’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
16%of admitsget merit
Average award$5,731Covers ~20% of $28,552 cost of attendance
At Lamar, roughly 1 in 6 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $5,731 — about 20% of total cost.
As filed in Lamar's CDS Section H2A: of 1,463 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 238 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $5,731. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 778 of 6,008, averaging $7,172. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
January 15 — endowed scholarships are awarded after this date, and materials for the Presidential and Southeast Texas Legends scholarships must be submitted to the Office of Student Aid by January 15.
What code do I use for FAFSA/TASFA?
Use school code 003581 on the FAFSA and TASFA to be eligible for additional financial aid.
How is GPA calculated for these scholarships?
High school GPA is calculated on a 5.0 weighted scale; class rank requirements do not apply to homeschool students or schools that do not rank.
How Lamar compares across our verified dataset
241 of 750 verified schools in our dataset use cost-of-attendance cap displacement.
Lamar is in a recognizable cluster (241 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
668 of 750 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Lamar is one of them. The cohort minority (82 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 Lamar’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
