Is OBU's academic scholarship automatic?

Yes. The four academic tiers (Academic Grant $15,000, President's $16,000, Trustee's $17,000, Founder's $20,000 per year) are awarded automatically on your GPA, ACT, SAT, or CLT — no separate application beyond admission. The full-tuition awards (University Scholar, Allen, Martin) are competitive and require an application.

What do I need to keep my scholarship?

Academic scholarships and grants are renewable provided you maintain a 2.0 College GPA.

Can I combine the full-tuition scholarship with other OBU aid?

No. Full-tuition scholarship recipients are not eligible for additional OBU aid, including athletic aid. The automatic academic tiers are your base award if you do not win a full-tuition scholarship.

What is the deadline for the full-tuition University Scholar award?

The application is due December 31 of your senior year, and the competition (OBU 2026 Scholars Day) is held February 6, 2026. The recommended FAFSA deadline is February 1, 2026.

Oklahoma Baptist University · Oklahoma

Oklahoma Baptist Merit Aid

Verified Jul 202625 days ago· CC

Merit tiers114 automatic on stats

Last verifiedJul 2026Analyst CC

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The merit-aid verdict at Oklahoma Baptist

Every incoming OBU freshman gets an automatic, stat-based academic award of at least $15,000/year, scaling up a published GPA/test grid to $20,000/year, with separate full-tuition competitions (University Scholar, Allen, Martin) on top.

Rules that bite at Oklahoma Baptist

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

capHard $53,620 cost-of-attendance ceiling
Institutional aid at Oklahoma Baptist cannot push the package past $53,620. Big outside wins can mathematically reduce institutional grant once the ceiling is reached.

Common merit-aid mistakes at Oklahoma Baptist

Assuming the full-tuition University Scholar award is automatic on a 29 ACT.
Meeting the 3.5 GPA + 29 ACT/1330 SAT/89 CLT cutoff only lets you APPLY. It is a competition: you must submit a recommendation, resume, and a 500-1,000 word essay, then compete at Scholars Day (Feb 6, 2026). The automatic tiers top out at Founder's Academic ($20,000/year).
Stacking a full-tuition award on top of the automatic academic tier.
Full-tuition scholarship recipients are NOT eligible for additional OBU aid, including athletic aid. The full-tuition awards replace, not supplement, the stat-based academic award.
Thinking athletic aid combines freely with merit scholarships.
Athletes who receive OBU athletic aid are ineligible for other OBU scholarships aside from their academic scholarship, and some awards exclude athletes outright.
Missing the December 31 / Scholars Day window for full tuition.
The University Scholar application is due December 31 of the senior year and the competition (OBU 2026 Scholars Day) is February 6, 2026; miss either and you fall back to the automatic academic tier.
Budgeting only to the $48,060 direct-cost subtotal.
The 2026-27 subtotal ($34,600 tuition + $4,230 fees + $9,230 housing & food = $48,060) excludes indirect costs: books & supplies ($1,000), transportation ($2,140), personal expenses ($2,350), and loan fee ($70), which bring the full cost of attendance to about $53,620.
Assuming a low high-school GPA means no merit money.
Even at 'GPA: 3.24 or below / ACT: 18 or below,' OBU's Academic Grant guarantees $15,000/year ($60,000 over four years) automatically — there is a guaranteed freshman floor.

Who this school is for

Faith-based students who want a guaranteed, automatic, stat-driven merit floor at a Baptist liberal-arts university; high-stat applicants (3.5 GPA + 29 ACT) can compete for full tuition, and Western-Oklahoma or Choctaw-Nation students have dedicated full-tuition paths.

Tuition / cost of attendance: Approximately $53,620 for 2026-2027. Source

Federal cost and outcome data

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

Average annual net price by family income at Oklahoma Baptist, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$17,562
$30,001–$48,000	$17,103
$48,001–$75,000	$21,033
$75,001–$110,000	$21,570
$110,001+	$26,102
All income levels (average)	$20,958

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $35,570
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $20,958

That works out to roughly a 57% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $48,695 (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: 52%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 72%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $24,801 (~$263/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $48,434
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 33%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 42%

How to read these numbers

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

Institutional merit aid tiers

Every tier below is sourced to the school’s own published financial aid pages. Renewal terms apply only if the student maintains the stated GPA.

Where you landAutomatic merit aid by ACT compositeEach bar marks the ACT score range that qualifies for the tier.

Founder's Academic$20,000

ACT 25+SAT 1200+ · GPA 3.75-4.0

Trustee's Academic$17,000

ACT 22-24SAT 1100-1199 · GPA 3.5-3.74

President's Academic$16,000

ACT 19-21SAT 1000-1099 · GPA 3.25-3.49

Not on this ladder: Academic Grant, University Scholar (Full-Tuition), Allen Academic Scholar (Full-Tuition, Western Oklahoma), Martin Academic Scholar (Full-Tuition, Choctaw Nation), Fine Arts Scholarships (Talent: voice, keyboard, instrument, music composition, art, theatre), Band Award (non-music majors), OBU Engineering Scholarship, Oklahoma Regents Rising Scholars Program (Academic Scholars) — application required, holistic, or scored on a different axis.

View as table

Tier	ACT composite	Award
Founder's Academic	25+	$20,000 per year ($80,000 over four years)
Trustee's Academic	22-24	$17,000 per year ($68,000 over four years)
President's Academic	19-21	$16,000 per year ($64,000 over four years)

$15,000 per year…$15,000 per year ($60,000 over four years)

Academic Grant

AutomaticRenewable

GPA: 3.24 or below
SAT: 999 or below
ACT: 18 or below

Requirements & details

Eligibility

CLT: 57 or below. This is the guaranteed minimum freshman award; first-time freshmen receive at least $15,000/year.

Renewal terms

Renewable provided the student maintains a 2.0 College GPA.

Notes

Lowest automatic tier and the floor of OBU's guaranteed freshman award. Awarded on academic achievement, not financial need.