Does MIT offer merit scholarships for top STEM students?

No. MIT does not offer merit scholarships of any kind. All financial aid is based solely on financial need. The CDS confirms 0% of freshmen received non-need institutional merit aid. Academic excellence is expected of all admitted students; it is the baseline, not a basis for extra funding.

How does MIT handle outside scholarships?

Outside scholarships first replace the student contribution (up to $5,400/year). Any excess reduces the MIT Scholarship. Students may apply a portion toward a one-time computer purchase or health insurance before the MIT Scholarship is reduced.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology · Massachusetts

MIT scholarships and merit aid

MIT does not offer merit scholarships of any kind — financial aid is based only on financial need. Families with income below $100,000 (typical assets) have zero expected family contribution. Families below $200,000 pay no tuition (effective 2025-2026). MIT meets 100% of demonstrated need.

Verified Jul 20262 months ago

The short answer

Is MIT worth a closer look?

Do not spend time looking for a merit scholarship here. MIT says its aid is based on financial need.

Merit tiers0See who qualifies

First-year students with school awards0%First-year students, CDS 2024-2025

Research checkedJul 2026By our research team

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What families often miss

STEM-focused families assuming MIT offers academic merit awards for top science and math students.
MIT's FAQ is unambiguous: 'MIT does not offer merit scholarships of any kind.' No academic, athletic, or artistic merit awards exist. The CDS confirms 0% of freshmen received non-need institutional merit aid.
Not knowing about the new $200,000 tuition-free threshold.
Effective 2025-2026, MIT expanded its tuition-free threshold to families earning up to $200,000 (with typical assets). Many upper-middle-class families who assumed MIT was unaffordable now qualify for significant aid.

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

Families who need to understand that MIT is not a merit-optimization target, even for top STEM students. A perfect score on the math SAT does not earn a merit scholarship. MIT's need-based system is generous: 57% of full-time undergraduates received an MIT Scholarship in 2024-2025, and the median net price actually paid by aid recipients was about $10,268. The $200,000 tuition-free threshold (effective 2025-2026) makes MIT accessible to a much wider range of families than most expect.

Cost of attendance$92,760 for 2026-2027Each bar is the full published cost for that scenario, sized against the highest figure so totals compare at a glance.

On-campus$92,760

$67K

$22K

Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Books
Personal

Standard budget; travel allowance calculated separately by address (excluded).

MIT cost-of-attendance source

Cost and graduation facts

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

Average annual net price by family income at MIT, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$0 — grants exceeded costs by $2,533
$30,001–$48,000	$93
$48,001–$75,000	$1,480
$75,001–$110,000	$11,555
$110,001+	$48,479
All income levels (average)	$20,111

A net price shown as "$0 — grants exceeded costs" means average grant aid for students in that income bracket was greater than the full cost of attendance that year — a genuine reported outcome, not a data error.

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $62,396
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $20,111

That works out to roughly a 76% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $82,730 (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: 96%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 99%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $14,768 (~$157/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $143,372
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 20%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 7%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not MIT'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 MIT'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.

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If your student brings another scholarship

Outside scholarships first cover the student contribution (up to $5,400). Excess reduces the MIT Scholarship. Students may use a portion toward a one-time computer purchase or health insurance before the MIT Scholarship is reduced.

Outside scholarships first replace the student contribution (up to $5,400 per year). Any excess must reduce the MIT Scholarship. Students may use a portion of outside awards toward a one-time computer purchase or health insurance before the MIT Scholarship is reduced. Contact your MIT financial aid counselor for case-specific options like multi-year payment timing.

Source

More school data

From the MIT Common Data Set 2024-2025:

SAT mid-50%1520–157025th / 75th percentile

ACT mid-50%34–3625th / 75th percentile

Receive institutional merit0%First-year students

Average merit award$0Across recipients

Source: Common Data Set

MIT merit aid FAQ

Does MIT offer merit scholarships for top STEM students?
No. MIT does not offer merit scholarships of any kind. All financial aid is based solely on financial need. The CDS confirms 0% of freshmen received non-need institutional merit aid. Academic excellence is expected of all admitted students; it is the baseline, not a basis for extra funding.
What does MIT cost for families earning under $200,000?
Families with income below $100,000 (typical assets) have zero expected family contribution. Starting in 2025-2026, families earning up to $200,000 (typical assets) pay no tuition. 57% of full-time undergraduates received an MIT Scholarship in 2024-2025, and the median net price actually paid by aid recipients was approximately $10,268. MIT awarded $162 million in need-based aid in 2024-25 and planned $176 million for 2025-26.
How does MIT handle outside scholarships?
Outside scholarships first replace the student contribution (up to $5,400/year). Any excess reduces the MIT Scholarship. Students may apply a portion toward a one-time computer purchase or health insurance before the MIT Scholarship is reduced.

See sources and other schools

How MIT compares

145 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use loan-first displacement.
MIT is in a recognizable cluster (145 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.

Sources used on this page

Every claim is checked against MIT’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Policy pageMIT stacking policy
Common Data SetMIT Common Data Set
Cost of attendanceMIT cost-of-attendance worksheet

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