Occidental College · California

Occidental College scholarships and merit aid

Oxy offers multiple merit tiers, from community-focused awards to top-tier presidential and trustee scholarships for high-achieving students.

Verified Jul 20262 months ago

The short answer

Is Occidental College worth a closer look?

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

Merit tiers9See who qualifies

Research checkedJul 2026By our research team

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Checking merit aid at Occidental College

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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.

$20,000

Presidents Scholarships

Apply separatelyCan continue

See who qualifies

How to keep it

Maintain 2 GPA

Source

$20,000

Community Impact Scholarships

Apply separatelyCan continue

See who qualifies

How to keep it

Maintain 2 GPA

Source

$50,000

Edgerton Occidental Merit Scholarship

Apply separatelyCan continue

Source

Amount not published

Centennial Scholarships

Apply separatelyCan continue

Source

$10,000

Upward Bound Achievement Award

Apply separatelyCan continue

Source

$2,000

National Merit Scholarships

Apply separatelyCan continue

Source

$30,000

Trustee Scholarships

Apply separatelyCan continue

See who qualifies

How to keep it

Maintain 2 GPA

Source

Up to $40,000

Margaret Bundy Scott Scholarships

Apply separatelyCan continue

See who qualifies

How to keep it

Maintain 2 GPA

Source

$25,000

Deans Scholarships

Apply separatelyCan continue

See who qualifies

How to keep it

Maintain 2 GPA

Source

See what could change an award

Straight from the aid office

What Occidental College's aid office says

Per the Office of Financial Aid, Occidental College, August 2026. How we verify

Stackability of merit scholarships

Can a student combine multiple merit scholarships at Oxy?

Merit scholarships are not stackable; a student receives only one merit scholarship, at the highest value they qualify for.

“The Merit Scholarships listed on our website, including the Occidental Commitment Scholarship and the Minimum GPA Scholarship, are not stackable.”

How merit award is determined

What factors determine which merit scholarship a student is awarded?

The Admission Team awards the highest-value merit scholarship a student is eligible for based on academic record and application materials, not financial need.

“The Admission Team will award a student with the Merit Scholarship of the highest value that they are eligible for based on the student's academic record and application material, not their demonstrated financial need”

GPA to retain merit scholarship

What GPA does a student need to keep the merit scholarship for all four years?

Merit scholarships are guaranteed for 4 years (8 semesters) as long as the student maintains a 2.00 GPA.

“Merit Scholarships are guaranteed for the student's 4 years (8 semesters at Oxy) as long as they maintain a 2.00 GPA”

Merit award vs. need-based eligibility

What happens if need-based eligibility is lower than the merit scholarship amount?

If need-based eligibility is less than the merit scholarship value, the student still gets the full merit scholarship but becomes ineligible for other need-based aid.

“If a student's need-based eligibility is less than the value of the Merit Scholarship they are awarded, the student will still receive the Merit Scholarship's full value, but will not be eligible for other need-based aid.”

Warning semester for lost eligibility

Is there a way back if a student loses eligibility for aid one semester?

If a student loses eligibility for need-based or merit aid, they get one warning semester with aid to regain eligibility; if not regained by the end of that semester, they lose eligibility for aid in subsequent semesters.

“If a student loses eligibility, both for need-based aid and/or merit aid, they are given one warning semester (with aid) to regain their eligibility (i.e. take more classes, improve GPA). If they are unable to regain eligibility by the end of their warning semester, they will not be eligible for need-based aid and/or merit aid in subsequent semesters.”

Effect of merit scholarship on total financial aid offer

Does winning a merit scholarship reduce the total financial aid package, and does it affect loans specifically?

Merit scholarships are considered when meeting demonstrated need and do not stack on top of the financial aid offer; the total aid offer amount stays the same as the demonstrated need, with the merit scholarship included in that total (example: $35,000 total need-based aid stays $35,000 total even with a $10k merit scholarship included).

“For example if a student is eligible for a total of $35,000 in need-based financial aid and they received a $10k Merit Scholarships, their total Financial Aid Offer would be $35,000 including a Merit Scholarship.”

Cost estimator and merit scholarships

Do the online cost estimators include merit scholarship amounts?

The Quick Cost Estimators do not include merit scholarships or tuition benefit eligibility, but this doesn't change the total aid value shown because merit scholarships don't stack.

“Please note that these estimates do not include merit scholarships or tuition benefit eligibility. However, this will not have an impact on the student's total aid value as produced by the estimators because merit scholarships do not stack.”

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

Strong applicants with compelling personal stories or exceptional academic records will find the most opportunity here. First-generation students and those with demonstrated community involvement are particularly encouraged to apply.

Published yearly cost: Approximately $95,365 for 2026-2027. Source

Cost and graduation facts

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

Average annual net price by family income at Occidental College, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$20,705
$30,001–$48,000	$17,655
$48,001–$75,000	$21,468
$75,001–$110,000	$28,033
$110,001+	$54,959
All income levels (average)	$38,263

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $66,274
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $38,263

That works out to roughly a 55% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $84,800 (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: 81%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 90%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $23,000 (~$244/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $75,951
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 16%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 36%

How to read these numbers

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

If your student brings another scholarship

Outside scholarships first reduce need-based loans, then the work award. Institutional grant funding is adjusted only if total grants and scholarships exceed total financial need; outside awards generally do not replace the calculated family contribution.

Source

Other Occidental College scholarships worth checking

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

Scholarships

AmountUp to $15,000EligibilityHonors Scholarships are awarded for up to $15,000 per year and are renewable for three additional years if the student maintains a cumulative GPA of 2.0.

Source

See sources and other schools

How Occidental College compares

145 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use loan-first displacement.
Occidental College 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.
665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Occidental College 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.
132 of 749 verified schools publish a dedicated National Merit Finalist package.
Occidental College is one of them. NMF packages typically carry their own stacking and renewal carve-outs separate from the standard automatic merit ladder; confirm those before assuming the headline NMF value is final.

Sources used on this page

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

Policy pageOccidental College stacking policy
Cost of attendanceOccidental College cost-of-attendance worksheet

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Keep exploring Occidental College merit aid

Occidental College scholarship stacking. Whether outside awards land as upside or quietly displace institutional aid.
Does Occidental College displace outside scholarships?. The dollar math on a $5,000 outside award, plus peer schools that handle it differently.
Occidental College four-year renewal rules. GPA floors, credit-hour pace, and the renewal cliffs that knock awards out by sophomore year.