These amounts and requirements come from the school’s own published pages. Open an award to see who qualifies and how to keep it.
Where does your student land?
Sac State General Scholarship Application (single-app match to 700+ institutional scholarships)Varies by individual scholarship; the Scholarships Office awards nearly $4 million in institutional scholarships each yearNot automaticRenewable
Published awardOther selection criteria
Sac State General Scholarship Application (single-app match to 700+ institutional scholarships)
Varies by individual scholarship; the Scholarships Office awards nearly $4 million in institutional scholarships each year
Variable or qualified amountNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
GPA
Varies by scholarship; full-time enrollment and a qualifying GPA are required before disbursement
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Sac State General Scholarship Application (single-app match to 700+ institutional scholarships)
Who qualifies
File one General Scholarship Application via csus.academicworks.com; you are automatically matched to scholarships you qualify for and placed in multiple application pools
How to keep it
Renewal terms are set per individual scholarship and are not published centrally. Recipients must meet each award's criteria (including full-time enrollment and GPA) before funds disburse.
Worth knowing
This is the front door to Sac State merit aid. It is NOT an automatic stats-based award: filing the single application matches you to opportunities, but individual scholarships are competitive and many add their own criteria. Application window: Oct 1, 2025 - Mar 2, 2026 for 2026-27.
Otis L. Scott Scholarship (College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies)Two $1,000 awardsNot automatic
Published awardOther selection criteria
Otis L. Scott Scholarship (College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies)
Two $1,000 awards
Published award termsNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
GPA
Minimum overall GPA of 2.75
Open award details for Otis L. Scott Scholarship (College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies)
Who qualifies
Full-time undergraduate students from any SSIS department or program; apply via the General Scholarship Application by March 2, 2026
Renewal terms
Not stated.
Worth knowing
Example of a quotable departmental award reachable through the single general application. Competitive, not automatic.
BEL Foundation Scholarship (College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies)One or more $5,000 awards, $2,500 per semesterNot automaticRenewable
Published awardOther selection criteria
BEL Foundation Scholarship (College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies)
One or more $5,000 awards, $2,500 per semester
Published award termsNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
Start with the award’s published eligibility.
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for BEL Foundation Scholarship (College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies)
Who qualifies
Students from a single-parent household or who are single parents raising children; at least 35 hours of community service each semester; apply via the General Scholarship Application by March 2, 2026
How to keep it
Disbursed $2,500 per semester; broader renewal terms not stated.
Worth knowing
Need/circumstance-aware award (single-parent household + community-service requirement), not a pure stats merit award; included because it has a quotable dollar amount and runs through the same general application.
Professor Erwin Kelly Scholarship (College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies)Two or more $1,000 awardsNot automatic
Published awardOther selection criteria
Professor Erwin Kelly Scholarship (College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies)
Two or more $1,000 awards
Published award termsNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
Start with the award’s published eligibility.
Open award details for Professor Erwin Kelly Scholarship (College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies)
Who qualifies
Full-time students majoring in Economics, Gerontology, History, Political Science, or Sociology at the junior, senior, or graduate level; apply via the General Scholarship Application by March 2, 2026
“it told me what to ask and what the renewal GPA looked like, which I was not going to find on my own”Melissa
The fine print
Renewal ruleSac State General Scholarship Application (single-app match to 700+ institutional scholarships): renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Renewal terms are set per individual scholarship and are not published centrally. Recipients must meet each award's criteria (including full-time enrollment and GPA) before funds disburse. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
Aid capHard $9,656 cost-of-attendance ceiling
Institutional aid at Sacramento State cannot push the package past $9,656. Big outside wins can mathematically reduce institutional grant once the ceiling is reached.
What makes Sacramento State different
Sacramento State publishes no automatic merit grid; institutional merit aid (~$4M/year across 700+ scholarships) is awarded through one general scholarship application open Oct 1-Mar 2, and most awards are competitive and need/major-aware rather than stats-automatic.
Merit tiers4See who qualifies
First-year students with school awards1%First-year students, CDS 2022-2023
Research checkedJul 2026By our research team
Selection beyond grades and scores
Start with the selection process.
These awards are not recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read each award's selection rules, application steps and dates. Meeting a minimum is not an award offer.
Read the selection rules
Look for the school's stated criteria and whether an additional application is needed.
Check the application dates
Confirm the current admission and scholarship deadlines directly with the school.
Know what happens next year
Check renewal, credit requirements and how other aid affects the award.
The fine print / Three questions to carry forward
Before you count on it.
Does it apply to us? Confirm the entering year, residency and every eligibility condition.
Can we keep it? Check renewal GPA, credits and how long the award lasts.
Can we combine it? Ask how outside scholarships and other school awards change the offer.
A printable research summary, source links and room for your questions.
See what could change an award+
What families often miss
Sacramento State publishes no automatic merit grid. Merit aid is awarded competitively through the General Scholarship Application; being admitted does not by itself trigger a merit award.
One application (csus.academicworks.com) is the gateway that matches you to 700+ institutional and departmental scholarships. If you don't file it by the March 2 deadline, you are not in the pools.
For 2026-27 the application is open October 1, 2025 through March 2, 2026. (Note: some individual colleges, e.g. Engineering & Computer Science, cite their own 'March 1st' cutoff — confirm the date for your college.)
$9,656/yr is resident tuition & fees only ($4,828/semester). The full 2026-27 cost of attendance adds living expenses of $11,430 (with parents), $20,212 (on-campus), or $23,504 (off-campus), plus books and transportation.
Sac State caps total funding at your full cost of attendance, so a large outside award can reduce other aid once you hit the COA ceiling. The displacement order is not published — ask the aid office.
See costs and school data+
Who this school may work for
California-resident and transfer students drawn by Sac State's very low $9,656/yr resident tuition who are willing to file one general scholarship application by March 2 to compete for departmental and college-specific awards; this is not a school that hands out large automatic stats-based merit.
Published yearly cost: Approximately $9,656 for 2026-2027. Source
Cost and graduation facts
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Sacramento State, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at Sacramento State, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$6,501
$30,001–$48,000
$7,001
$48,001–$75,000
$9,212
$75,001–$110,000
$11,814
$110,001+
$18,861
All income levels (average)
$9,338
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23
$8,018
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23
$20,618
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$9,338
That works out to roughly a 59% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $22,945 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
Sacramento State is a public school; Scorecard's net price figure covers in-state, Title-IV-aid-recipient payers only — there is no comparable federal figure for out-of-state students.
Outcomes for students who enrolled here
Graduation rate (150% of normal time), 2016 cohort
56%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
82%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$15,000 (~$159/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$64,876
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
57%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
22%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
Sacramento State does not publish a scholarship-stacking or outside-award-displacement grid. The one governing rule found is a cost-of-attendance cap: a student may not receive funding beyond their full cost of attendance, so an outside scholarship can reduce other aid once total aid reaches the COA ceiling.
The Scholarships Office states aid is capped at the student's full cost of attendance. No page found describes whether an outside scholarship displaces institutional merit, grants, or self-help first; the only stated constraint is the COA ceiling. Treat displacement order as unconfirmed and have the family ask the aid office.
From the Sacramento State Common Data Set 2022-2023:
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From Sacramento State’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
1%of admitsget merit
Average award$1,043Covers ~11% of $9,656 cost of attendance
At Sacramento State, roughly 1 in 100 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $1,043 — about 11% of total cost.
As filed in Sacramento State's CDS Section H2A: of 3,804 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 34 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $1,043. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 79 of 22,329, averaging $1,694. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
Receive institutional merit1%First-year students, Common Data Set 2022-2023
Average merit award$1,043Across recipients, Common Data Set 2022-2023
AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityCurrent GE Honors Program students; incoming students must have submitted their Intent to Enroll to both the GE Honors Program and Sacramento State and activated their MySacState account.
Applied for via the General Scholarship Application (open October-March); recipients typically notified in May. No dollar amounts published. Not available prior to acceptance.
AmountNearly 50 scholarships totaling over $300,000 each year (individual amounts not published per award)EligibilityBusiness majors; apply via the General Scholarship Application, Oct 1, 2025 - Mar 2, 2026.
Pool figure only; per-scholarship amounts are not listed on the college page.
Does Sacramento State give automatic merit scholarships based on GPA or test scores?
No. Sac State does not publish an automatic stats-based merit grid. Institutional merit aid (nearly $4 million/year across 700+ scholarships) is awarded competitively through the single General Scholarship Application; admission alone does not trigger a merit award.
How do I apply, and what is the deadline?
File one General Scholarship Application at csus.academicworks.com. For 2026-27 it is open October 1, 2025 through March 2, 2026; you are automatically matched to scholarships you qualify for. Some colleges list their own cutoff (e.g., ECS cites March 1), so confirm your college's date.
Are the scholarships renewable?
Renewal terms are set per individual scholarship and are not published centrally. Recipients must meet each award's criteria (full-time enrollment, GPA, and any award-specific conditions) before funds disburse each term.
If I win an outside scholarship, will it reduce my Sac State aid?
Possibly. Sac State states a student may not receive funding beyond their full cost of attendance, so an outside award can reduce other aid once total aid reaches the COA cap. The exact displacement order isn't published — ask the Scholarships Office (916-278-6179 / scholarshipfaqs@csus.edu).
See sources and other schools+
How Sacramento State compares
235 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use cost-of-attendance cap displacement.
Sacramento State is in a recognizable cluster (235 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.
Sacramento State 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 Sacramento State’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
