School of the Art Institute of Chicago · Illinois

School of the Art Institute of Chicago Merit Aid

Verified Jul 202625 days ago· HX-AUTO

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Last verifiedJul 2026Analyst HX-AUTO

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Checking merit aid at School of the Art Institute of Chicago

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The merit-aid verdict at School of the Art Institute of Chicago

SAIC offers merit scholarships for artists at every level, from emerging creators to distinguished talents.

Who this school is for

Best for students with strong creative portfolios and a serious commitment to art or design, including transfer students who have demonstrated artistic achievement.

Tuition / cost of attendance: Approximately $78,770 for 2026-2027. Source

Federal cost and outcome data

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

Average annual net price by family income at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$43,798
$30,001–$48,000	$39,845
$48,001–$75,000	$46,708
$75,001–$110,000	$49,595
$110,001+	$55,790
All income levels (average)	$49,790

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $56,420
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $49,790

That works out to roughly a 34% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $75,625 (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: 67%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 84%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $27,000 (~$286/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $40,151
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 20%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 41%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not School of the Art Institute of Chicago'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 School of the Art Institute of Chicago'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.

ApplicationRenewable

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Percentage of tuition (see source)

New Artists Society Scholarship

ApplicationRenewable

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Lesser-known scholarships at School of the Art Institute of Chicago

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

Scholarship

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilitySAIC offers an Honors merit scholarship for new undergraduate students, awarded at the time of admission based on holistic review of application materials and annually renewed as long as students maintain successful academic standing.

Source

How School of the Art Institute of Chicago compares across our verified dataset

668 of 750 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of them. The cohort minority (82 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 School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

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