Jesuit university in Chicago with six named merit tiers (Presidential, Damen, Loyola, Trustee, Dean, Regent's) automatically awarded at admission. The range published for Fall 2025 entrants is $14,000 to $31,000 per year — all tuition-restricted.
Verified Jul 20262 months ago· CA-1
The short answer
Is Loyola Chicago worth a closer look?
Loyola Chicago 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
First-year students with school awards32%First-year students, CDS 2025-2026 (school-estimated)
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.
$14,000–$31,000 per year…$14,000–$31,000 per year (Fall 2025 entering class, last verified range); awarded by tier with the tier name announced on the admission letter.
All six tiers are awarded as part of the admission decision based on academic achievement. No separate application. Loyola recommends submitting the admission application by December 1 to ensure admission by the February 1 cutoff for scholarship consideration. Restricted to full-time undergraduates pursuing their first bachelor's degree; second-bachelor's students are ineligible.
How to keep it
Tuition-restricted awards renewable as outlined in the admission letter. Standard renewal contingent on maintaining required GPA each year.
Notes
Loyola Chicago publishes a single range, not stat-banded tier-by-tier cutoffs. The specific tier (Presidential at the top through Regent's at the bottom) is decided by the admission committee.
These are the rules we would flag for your family. Each comes from Loyola Chicago's published information.
displacementDifferent aid types are displaced differently
Loyola Chicago treats loans, work-study, and institutional grant under different rules. The same $5,000 outside award can land against any of them depending on category.
What families often miss
Loyola's merit scholarships are tuition-restricted, which means the moment the merit award plus a tuition-restricted outside scholarship exceeds tuition, Loyola reduces the institutional merit first. Outside awards that are not tuition-restricted are governed by federal need-based rules instead.
Loyola does not publish a separate scholarship deadline — but it tells applicants explicitly that 'freshmen should be admitted no later than February 1 for scholarship consideration,' which means the admission application should reach the Undergraduate Admission Office by December 1 to leave time for review.
Loyola's main scholarships page publishes a wider range — $14,000 to $31,000 per year (Fall 2025, last verified) — covering all six tiers including Dean's and Regent's. Families looking only at the admissions marketing page underestimate the floor by $6,000.
See award cutoffs and special programs+
Presidential Scholarship — Loyola Chicago's top automatic tier
The Presidential Scholarship sits at the top of Loyola Chicago's six-tier merit ladder. The full ladder — Presidential, Damen, Loyola, Trustee, Dean, Regent's — is awarded automatically based on the admission application, with no separate scholarship essay or interview. Loyola publishes a single award range of $14,000 to $31,000 per year for Fall 2025 entrants and does not disclose the GPA or test-score thresholds that move an applicant from Regent's to Presidential. The decision is holistic. To be in the running, the completed admission application should reach Loyola by December 1, because the university needs to issue an admission decision by February 1 to load the scholarship onto the offer letter.
Students looking for a mid-sized urban Jesuit campus where merit aid is competitive but fully automatic on the admission application — no separate scholarship essay. December 1 application is the practical deadline because Loyola needs to issue admission decisions by February 1 to put scholarships on the offer letter.
Cost of attendance$73,270 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$73,270
$56K
$17K
Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Official LUC Bursar 2025-2026 tuition ($54,530) + mandatory full-time fees (Student Development $475 + Technology $130 + CTA U-Pass $160 per semester x2 = $1,530). Housing from official Res Life 2025-2026 rates (https://www.luc.edu/reslife/futureresidents/roomboardrates/2025-2026rates/) standard first-year double (de Nobili) $10,950/yr; board from official 2025-2026 meal plans (https://www.luc.edu/campuscard/mealplans/non-residentmealplans/2025-2026mealplans/) lowest required All-Access plan (5-Day #1) $3,130/sem x2. Billed-only.
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Loyola Chicago, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at Loyola Chicago, academic year 2021-22
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$28,992
$30,001–$48,000
$28,663
$48,001–$75,000
$32,432
$75,001–$110,000
$36,853
$110,001+
$42,346
All income levels (average)
$36,079
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23
$53,710
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$36,079
That works out to roughly a 46% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $67,408 (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
73%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
82%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$24,157 (~$256/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$71,530
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
32%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
49%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
Loyola Chicago documents both a tuition-cap rule for merit (outside + merit scholarship cannot exceed tuition; merit is reduced first) and a need-based rule (private scholarships may reduce need-based aid, with loans and work-study cut before grants per federal regulations).
Loyola's merit aid is tuition-restricted, which triggers a hard tuition cap when combined with outside tuition-restricted scholarships — the institutional merit award is reduced first to keep the total at or below tuition. Separately, for federally-monitored need-based aid, receipt of a private scholarship may reduce need-based aid; in that case Loyola reduces self-help (work-study and loans) before federal or institutional gift assistance. Students must submit an Outside Scholarship Notification Form to the Financial Aid Office.
From the Loyola Chicago Common Data Set 2025-2026 (school-estimated figures):
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From Loyola Chicago’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
32%of admitsget merit
Average award$27,362Covers ~37% of $73,270 cost of attendance
At Loyola Chicago, roughly 1 in 3 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $27,362 — about 37% of total cost.
As filed in Loyola Chicago's CDS Section H2A: of 2,605 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 842 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $27,362. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 4,139 of 11,120, averaging $24,260. 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.
Do I need a separate application for Loyola Chicago's merit scholarships?
No. Loyola states that scholarships are awarded based on information provided in the admission application process — with no separate scholarship application. All six tiers (Presidential, Damen, Loyola, Trustee, Dean, Regent's) are awarded through the admission decision.
What are the actual merit scholarship amounts?
For Fall 2025 entrants (the last range verified on the public scholarship page), Loyola publishes a range of $14,000 to $31,000 per year. The six tier names (Presidential at the top, Regent's at the bottom) are not paired with specific stat cutoffs publicly — the admissions committee assigns the tier based on overall academic achievement.
When do I need to apply by?
Loyola states: 'Because freshmen should be admitted no later than February 1 for scholarship consideration, the completed application should be sent to the Undergraduate Admission Office by December 1.' Transfer students must be admitted by June 1.
Can outside scholarships stack on top of my Loyola merit?
Up to a tuition cap, yes. Loyola's rule states that 'In the event a student receives both internal and external scholarship funding which is restricted to tuition only and the total amount exceeds tuition, the merit-based scholarship will be adjusted first.' Below the tuition cap, outside awards layer cleanly; above it, your Loyola merit shrinks.
Can I keep the merit scholarship while studying abroad?
Generally yes for affiliated programs like the John Felice Rome Center. For non-affiliated study abroad, Loyola says students 'forfeit scholarship eligibility for the term(s) away.' Check directly with the Financial Aid Office before committing to a non-Loyola program — that semester may cost you a full term of merit aid.
See sources and other schools+
How Loyola Chicago compares
32 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use mixed displacement.
Loyola Chicago is in the small minority (32 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
667 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Loyola Chicago 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 Loyola Chicago’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
