Savannah College of Art and Design · Georgia

SCAD Merit Aid

Verified Jun 20262 months ago· HX-AUTO

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Last verifiedJun 2026Analyst HX-AUTO

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Checking merit aid at SCAD

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The merit-aid verdict at SCAD

SCAD rewards talented artists and designers with merit aid that recognizes creative achievement.

Who this school is for

If you're a dedicated art or design student with a strong portfolio, SCAD's scholarship programs are worth exploring for their recognition of creative talent.

Tuition / cost of attendance: Approximately $68,691 for 2026-2027. Source

Federal cost and outcome data

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

Average annual net price by family income at SCAD, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$44,858
$30,001–$48,000	$45,198
$48,001–$75,000	$48,668
$75,001–$110,000	$51,558
$110,001+	$52,147
All income levels (average)	$49,430

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $41,630
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $49,430

That works out to roughly a 22% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $63,627 (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: 69%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 86%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $25,148 (~$267/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $45,954
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 20%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 39%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not SCAD'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 SCAD'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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Lesser-known scholarships at SCAD

Named awards that don’t always surface on the main financial aid page. Each one has its own eligibility rules.

Scad Honors Scholarship

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityThe SCAD Honors Scholarship requires outstanding academic and/or artistic achievement, a 3.5 or higher cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale, or an outstanding portfolio, audition, or writing submission, with above-average grades and test scores and specified GRE scores.

Source

Sources used on this page

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

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