Milligan University · Tennessee

Milligan scholarships and merit aid

Milligan offers merit awards through honors programs and specialized scholarships for ministry, arts, athletics, and academic achievement.

Verified Jun 20263 months ago

The short answer

Is Milligan worth a closer look?

Milligan may be worth checking, but its awards do not follow a simple grades-and-scores chart. Start with the published scholarships below.

Merit tiers8See who qualifies

Research checkedJun 2026By our research team

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Checking merit aid at Milligan

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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.

$300–$3,000

Bible Bowl Scholarships

Apply separately

Source

Amount not published

Debate Team And Fly Fishing

Apply separately

Source

$1,000

General Assembly Merit Scholarship

Apply separately

GPA: 3.75
ACT: 29

Source

$4,500–$5,700

Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship Hope

Apply separately

GPA: 3
SAT: 1060
ACT: 21

Source

Amount not published

Athletic Scholarships

Apply separately

Source

Amount not published

Performing Arts

Apply separately

Source

Up to $6,000

Ned Mcwherter Scholars Program

Apply separatelyCan continue

GPA: 3.5
SAT: 1280
ACT: 29

Source

Amount not published

Goah Scholars Program

Apply separately

Source

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

Students seeking a Christ-centered university with competitive honors programs and diverse scholarship pathways in ministry, performing arts, or specialized fields will find Milligan a compelling choice.

Published yearly cost: Approximately $49,650 for 2026-2027. Source

Cost and graduation facts

Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Milligan, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.

Average annual net price by family income at Milligan, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$15,118
$30,001–$48,000	$14,635
$48,001–$75,000	$16,351
$75,001–$110,000	$22,348
$110,001+	$26,390
All income levels (average)	$21,365

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $40,450
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $21,365

That works out to roughly a 59% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $52,511 (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: 63%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 82%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $25,219 (~$267/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $46,641
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 27%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 50%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not Milligan's full student body.
Published tuition is the catalog sticker price for all students, not a Title IV-only figure.
Graduation rate reflects the entire first-time, full-time, degree-seeking cohort — not only students who received Title IV aid.
Retention rate reflects all first-time, full-time, bachelor's-seeking students — not only Title IV aid recipients.
Median debt reflects only completers who took out federal student loans — not Milligan's full graduating class, and not limited to first-time, full-time students.
Median earnings reflect Title IV aid recipients who entered college and were working (not enrolled) roughly a decade later — not necessarily the graduating cohort, and not a recent graduate's paycheck.
Pell grant and federal loan participation covers first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students only.
Net price blends need-based aid and merit aid together — it is not a merit-specific estimate. It shows what similar-income families actually paid on average after every kind of aid, not what a strong-stats student could win in merit dollars alone. Treat it as cost context, not a merit forecast — a MeritPlaybook models merit aid specifically for your student’s own stats, which this net-price figure cannot do.

None of this is current-year data — the U.S. Department of Education reports it on a delay, and different figures below come from different reporting years. Net price is an academic year 2021-22 figure. Published tuition reflects the 2022-23 academic year. Graduation rate reflects the Fall 2016 entering, full-time, first-time, degree/certificate-seeking cohort; completion measured within 150% of normal time (~6 years for a bachelor's degree). IPEDS Graduation Rates component (C150_4). Retention reflects the Fall 2021 full-time, first-time, bachelor's-seeking cohort retained into the following fall. IPEDS Fall Enrollment component (RET_FT4). Median debt reflects the NSLDS FY2020 and FY2021 pooled completer cohorts (GRAD_DEBT_MDN, GRAD_DEBT_MDN10YR_SUPP). Median earnings reflect the Treasury-matched cohort entering college in AY2009-10 or AY2010-11, earnings measured 10 years later in calendar years 2020 and 2021, inflation-adjusted to 2022 dollars (MD_EARN_WNE_P10).

Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard.

See other scholarships and cost examples

Other Milligan scholarships worth checking

These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.

Nursing Ballad Health Scholarship

AmountUp to $5,000EligibilityNursing: Ballad Health Scholarship provides up to $5,000 per year toward tuition for nursing majors with a commitment for employment upon graduation and state licensure attainment.

Source

Jeanes Honors Scholarship

AmountFull tuitionEligibilityJeanes Honors Scholarship is Milligan’s most prestigious merit-based scholarship, with two full-tuition scholarships available annually; applicants need a minimum 3.5 GPA and minimum 29 ACT or 1340 SAT, and must be admitted by Dec. 1.

Source

Ministry Leadership Scholarship

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityMinistry Leadership Scholarship requires minimum 21 ACT, 980 SAT, 68 CLT, or 3.0 final weighted GPA for entering freshmen, full-time enrollment, and maintaining a specified ministry-related major; renewal GPA requirements increase to 2.5 by the end of the fourth semester and each semester thereafter.

Source

Hopwood Honors Scholarship

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityHopwood Honors Scholarship supports high-achieving applicants eligible for Milligan’s Honors Program; award amounts vary and are renewable for up to 8 total semesters.

Source

Fine Arts

Amount$2,000–$4,000EligibilityFine Arts awards are $4,000 for majors and $2,000 for minors, based on applicant ability and faculty discretion, and require students to major or minor in Fine Arts-Art or Graphic Design.

Source

See sources and other schools

How Milligan compares

665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Milligan 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 Milligan’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Cost of attendanceMilligan cost-of-attendance worksheet
Merit tiersBible Bowl Scholarships

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