Southeast Missouri State University · Missouri

SEMO scholarships and merit aid

Strong merit options for honors students and transfer students with a record of academic achievement.

Verified Jul 20262 months ago

The short answer

Is SEMO worth a closer look?

We did not find a simple published award list to show for SEMO. Read our full reasoning before spending more time here.

Merit tiers0See who qualifies

First-year students with school awards28%First-year students, CDS 2023-2024

Research checkedJul 2026By our research team

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See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

Transfer students from community colleges and high-achieving incoming freshmen should explore these awards, particularly those interested in the honors college.

Published yearly cost: Approximately $23,106 for 2026-2027. Source

Cost and graduation facts

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

Average annual net price by family income at SEMO, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$12,704
$30,001–$48,000	$13,342
$48,001–$75,000	$15,338
$75,001–$110,000	$17,395
$110,001+	$21,267
All income levels (average)	$15,882

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $9,903
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $15,882

That works out to roughly a 37% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $25,177 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).

SEMO 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: 58%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 76%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $21,500 (~$228/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $44,030
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 44%
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 SEMO'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 SEMO'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.

See other scholarships and cost examples

More school data

From the SEMO Common Data Set 2023-2024:

Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From SEMO’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.

28%of admitsget merit

Average award$4,600Covers ~20% of $23,106 cost of attendance

At SEMO, roughly 1 in 4 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $4,600 — about 20% of total cost.

As filed in SEMO's CDS Section H2A: of 1,235 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 340 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $4,600. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 1,476 of 5,846, averaging $4,794. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.

Receive institutional merit28%First-year students, Common Data Set 2023-2024

Average merit award$4,600Across recipients, Common Data Set 2023-2024

Source: Common Data Set 2023-2024 (verified 2026-07-23)

Other SEMO scholarships worth checking

These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.

Josh Downing Memorial Scholarship For Hospitality Management

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityThe Josh Downing Memorial Scholarship for Hospitality Management is available to management students.

Source

Marcellus Jones Endowed Memorial Scholarship

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityThe Marcellus Jones Endowed Memorial Scholarship is available to management students.

Source

James And Pat Allen Hospitality Management Scholarship

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityThe James and Pat Allen Hospitality Management Scholarship is available to management students.

Source

Department Of Management And Marketing Scholarship

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityThe Department of Management and Marketing Scholarship is available to management students.

Source

See sources and other schools

Sources used on this page

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

Cost of attendanceSEMO cost-of-attendance worksheet
Scholarship pageJosh Downing Memorial Scholarship For Hospitality Management

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