How does SLU treat outside scholarships?

SLU requires students to report outside awards by sending checks to the Office of Student Financial Services with their Banner ID. The public site does not publish a uniform displacement rule — outside scholarships are governed by each award's own restrictions (tuition vs cost-of-attendance). Call the office before counting on a stack.

Saint Louis U· Scholarship Stacking

Stacking Outside Scholarships at Saint Louis U

How Saint Louis U treats outside scholarships when they arrive on top of institutional merit aid.

Verified May 20268 days ago· CA-1

The verdict

Displacement policy unclear

At Saint Louis U, an outside scholarship isn't fully spelled out in published policy. The strategy follows from that: assume the worst-case (grant-first) until the aid office confirms otherwise in writing.

slu.edu publishes the $81,002 cost-of-attendance worksheet the math is run against.

Stacking policy at Saint Louis U

SLU requires students to report outside scholarships and notes that each award is governed by its own donor-specified limits (e.g., tuition-restricted vs cost-of-attendance restricted). The public site does not publish a single displacement formula — call the Office of Student Financial Services before assuming a large outside award will stack on top of the Vice Presidents' or Presidential tier.

SLU's outside scholarship guidance directs students to send scholarship checks to the Office of Student Financial Services along with their Banner ID, and notes that 'students have full use of those scholarship amounts, subject to the limitations set forth by each individual award (Example: tuition vs. the full cost of attendance).' That implies outside awards add value up to the relevant donor cap, but SLU does not publish a uniform institutional-aid displacement rule on the public scholarship page.

Source: https://www.slu.edu/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships.php

Common stacking mistakes

Assuming the Presidential Scholarship covers full cost of attendance.
The Presidential Scholarship covers full tuition only — not housing, food, or fees. On a 2025-26 published COA of $81,002 and tuition of $56,960, that leaves roughly $24,000 per year in non-tuition costs to fund through other means.

Stacking questions families ask

How does SLU treat outside scholarships?: SLU requires students to report outside awards by sending checks to the Office of Student Financial Services with their Banner ID. The public site does not publish a uniform displacement rule — outside scholarships are governed by each award's own restrictions (tuition vs cost-of-attendance). Call the office before counting on a stack.

Rules that bite at Saint Louis U

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

renewalVice Presidents' Scholarship: renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Renewable for 10 consecutive full-time fall and spring semesters as long as the recipient maintains a 2.0 GPA. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
displacementNo published displacement order
Saint Louis U's policy doesn't specify whether outside scholarships hit loans, grants, or only the COA ceiling. Get a written aid-office answer before chasing private awards.

Aid-office script (copy & send)

A binding written answer beats a verbal hallway promise. This script is keyed to Saint Louis U's published displacement type. Paste it, fill in your name, and send it before you accept an outside award.

Subject: Outside-scholarship treatment question, fall applicant

Dear Saint Louis U Financial Aid Office,

I'm a fall applicant reviewing how outside scholarships interact with my institutional aid package. I've read the public policy at https://www.slu.edu/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships.php and the $81,002 cost-of-attendance worksheet.

The public policy doesn't specify how outside scholarships are treated against institutional merit and need-based aid. Can you confirm in writing whether outside awards reduce: (a) loans first, (b) institutional grant first, or (c) only trigger a reduction when total aid exceeds COA?

If the answer varies by aid type or award size, what's the dollar threshold or category split?

A written answer (email is fine) is important because the outside-scholarship awarding bodies want confirmation before disbursing. Thank you for the time.

— [Student name], [Application ID if available]

How Saint Louis U compares across our verified dataset

15 of 150 verified schools in our dataset use unclear or unpublished displacement.
Saint Louis U is in the modest minority (15 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
15 of 150 verified schools publish no clear displacement order.
Saint Louis U is one of them. The right move is the aid-office email script below, not a guess.
133 of 150 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Saint Louis U is one of them. The cohort minority (17 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 Saint Louis U’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.