What is the cost of attendance?

First-year resident estimated COA is $76,865 (tuition $50,760; activity fee $420; health services $520; orientation $200; housing $12,430; food $7,700; books $2,425; transportation $1,120; personal $1,200; loan fees $90). Commuter-at-home is $63,385 and off-campus is $79,385.

Marist· Scholarship Stacking

Stacking Outside Scholarships at Marist

How Marist treats outside scholarships when they arrive on top of institutional merit aid.

Verified Jun 2026today· COWORK

The verdict

Displacement policy unclear

At Marist, an outside scholarship isn't fully spelled out in published policy. The strategy follows from that: assume the worst-case (grant-first) until the aid office confirms otherwise in writing.

marist.edu publishes the $76,865 cost-of-attendance worksheet the math is run against.

Stacking policy at Marist

No more than one merit-based award is given to each student. The Dollars for Scholars program matches up to $500 per recipient (Marist commits a maximum $10,000 pool, first-come, first-served).

The page states only one merit award per student and is silent on how private OUTSIDE scholarships displace institutional aid, except for the Dollars for Scholars $500 match. It is unclear whether the talent (Music/Theatre) and Alumni awards count against the one-merit rule.

Source: https://www.marist.edu/financial-aid/freshman/types-of-aid/scholarships

Common stacking mistakes

Expecting to stack the Presidential and Marist Scholarship (or multiple merit awards)
Marist explicitly awards no more than ONE merit scholarship per student — the two academic tiers are mutually exclusive.

Stacking questions families ask

What is the cost of attendance?: First-year resident estimated COA is $76,865 (tuition $50,760; activity fee $420; health services $520; orientation $200; housing $12,430; food $7,700; books $2,425; transportation $1,120; personal $1,200; loan fees $90). Commuter-at-home is $63,385 and off-campus is $79,385.

Rules that bite at Marist

The trip wires we'd flag in a custom playbook. Each is derived from Marist's own published policy, not generic advice.

displacementNo published displacement order
Marist'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.

Aid-office script (copy & send)

A binding written answer beats a verbal hallway promise. This script is keyed to Marist's published displacement type. Paste it, fill in your name, and send it before you accept an outside award.

Subject: Outside-scholarship treatment question, fall applicant

Dear Marist Financial Aid Office,

I'm a fall applicant reviewing how outside scholarships interact with my institutional aid package. I've read the public policy at https://www.marist.edu/financial-aid/freshman/types-of-aid/scholarships and the $76,865 cost-of-attendance worksheet.

The public policy doesn't specify how outside scholarships are treated against institutional merit and need-based aid. Can you confirm in writing whether outside awards reduce: (a) loans first, (b) institutional grant first, or (c) only trigger a reduction when total aid exceeds COA?

If the answer varies by aid type or award size, what's the dollar threshold or category split?

A written answer (email is fine) is important because the outside-scholarship awarding bodies want confirmation before disbursing. Thank you for the time.

— [Student name], [Application ID if available]

How Marist compares across our verified dataset

61 of 272 verified schools in our dataset use unclear or unpublished displacement.
Marist is in a recognizable cluster (61 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
61 of 272 verified schools publish no clear displacement order.
Marist is one of them. The right move is the aid-office email script below, not a guess.
247 of 272 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Marist is one of them. The cohort minority (25 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 Marist’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.