Get merit aid25%First-year students, CDS 2025-2026 (school-estimated)
Last verifiedJul 2026Analyst CC
Free Merit Check
See what St. Cloud State's published rules mean for your student's numbers. Takes 30 seconds.
The merit-aid verdict at St. Cloud State
Every admitted first-year student is automatically considered for a Presidential Scholarship of $2,500, $1,500, $750, or $500 — no separate application — and the foundation's 450+ Huskies Scholarships are reachable through a single application.
Rules that bite at St. Cloud State
The trip wires we'd flag in a custom playbook. Each is derived from St. Cloud State's own published policy, not generic advice.
displacementNo published displacement order
St. Cloud State'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.
Common merit-aid mistakes at St. Cloud State
The official page lists four amounts ($2,500, $1,500, $750, $500) and the qualifying floor (24 ACT or 2.6 HS GPA) but does NOT publish which stat bands map to which amount. Budget conservatively until the admissions award letter states your specific amount.
The page states 'Presidential Scholarships may not be applied to Accelerated Online Programs' — an online-degree student may not be able to use it.
The single foundation application for 450+ awards ran February 2-March 15, 2026 for 2026-27, and any offer must be accepted with the questionnaire before June 7, 2026 or it may be forfeited. Auto-consideration for the Presidential Scholarship through admissions is separate from this application.
The Be A Husky Rate matches Minnesota in-state tuition for out-of-state students, but Wisconsin and North Dakota residents are handled under separate reciprocity agreements, not this rate.
2026-27 tuition is $9,960/year for Minnesota/reciprocity residents, but the full estimated cost of attendance is $28,412/year once fees, housing and meals ($11,306), books, transportation, and personal expenses are added. Living with parents reduces the budget by $2,975 per semester.
SCSU requires outside scholarships, tuition waivers, and other third-party funding to be reported to the Financial Aid Office via its Scholarship Notification Form so they can be added to your package; failing to report can cause packaging problems later.
Who this school is for
In-state and out-of-state students who want a modest, automatic, stats-based merit floor at an affordable public regional university; out-of-state students benefit further from the Be A Husky Rate matching Minnesota in-state tuition.
Tuition / cost of attendance: Approximately $28,412 for 2026-2027. Source
Federal cost and outcome data
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at St. Cloud State, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at St. Cloud State, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$8,909
$30,001–$48,000
$9,871
$48,001–$75,000
$12,034
$75,001–$110,000
$14,781
$110,001+
$18,989
All income levels (average)
$13,529
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23
$10,245
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$13,529
That works out to roughly a 36% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $21,116 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
St. Cloud 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
40%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
71%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$21,058 (~$223/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$55,813
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
34%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
38%
Institutional merit aid tiers
Every tier below is sourced to the school’s own published financial aid pages. Renewal terms apply only if the student maintains the stated GPA.
Where you landAutomatic merit aid by ACT compositeEach bar marks the ACT score range that qualifies for the tier.
Presidential Scholarship$2,500,
ACT 24GPA 2.6 cumulative high school GPA or above on a 4.0 scale
2024283236
Not on this ladder:Be A Husky Rate (out-of-state tuition match), Huskies Scholarships (SCSU Foundation, single application) — application required, holistic, or scored on a different axis.
View as table
Tier
ACT composite
Award
Presidential Scholarship
24
$2,500, $1,500, $750, or $500 per year
$2,500…$2,500, $1,500, $750, or $500 per year
Presidential Scholarship
AutomaticRenewable
GPA
2.6 cumulative high school GPA or above on a 4.0 scale
ACT
24
Requirements & details+
Eligibility
Awarded through the Office of Admissions; all admitted new incoming first-year students are automatically considered, no additional application. May not be applied to Accelerated Online Programs.
Renewal terms
Renewable for up to four years pending SCSU GPA and course completion. The exact renewal GPA and credit-completion threshold are not published on the page.
Notes
Automatic on stats: a 24 ACT OR a 2.6+ HS GPA qualifies. The page does not publish which GPA/ACT bands map to which of the four dollar amounts, so the specific tier a student receives is not knowable in advance from the official page.
Amount varies…Amount varies (tuition reduced to match Minnesota in-state rate)
Be A Husky Rate (out-of-state tuition match)
ApplicationRenewable
View requirements+
Eligibility
Admitted, undergraduate, out-of-state students. Eligible for incoming first-year students and incoming first-year transfer students. Wisconsin and North Dakota have separate reciprocity agreements and are not covered by this rate.
Renewal terms
Functions as a tuition rate rather than a fixed-dollar scholarship; applies to out-of-state students for the duration they pay the matched in-state rate. Specific renewal conditions not published on the page.
Notes
Not a cash award — it lowers the tuition price out-of-state students pay to the Minnesota in-state rate. The 2026-27 COA page shows the out-of-state Be A Husky discount as $11,172/year. No dollar amount is stated on the scholarships page itself, so amount is left as 'varies' here.
Amount not published…Amount not published (more than 450 scholarships; individual amounts not listed)
Huskies Scholarships (SCSU Foundation, single application)
ApplicationRenewable
View requirements+
Eligibility
Foundation scholarships gifted by friends and alumni, plus academic merit awards from admissions; one application covers more than 450 scholarships. Must be enrolled when the scholarship is received.
Renewal terms
Renewal terms vary by individual foundation scholarship and are not published on the program landing page.
Notes
One application opens access to 450+ donor-funded scholarships. The 2026-27 application ran February 2-March 15, 2026; offers must be accepted (with the acceptance questionnaire) before June 7, 2026, or the offer may be forfeited. No specific dollar amounts are published, so amount is honestly left unstated rather than invented.
SCSU does not publish a quantitative outside-scholarship displacement rule. The Financial Aid Office requires that any new outside scholarship, tuition waiver, or other third-party funding be reported via its electronic Scholarship Notification Form so it can be added to the student's financial aid package, which can trigger a revision of the existing package. The direction of any adjustment (loan-first vs. grant-first) is not stated on the official pages reviewed.
Outside awards must be reported and are added to the aid package; how they interact with self-help vs. gift aid is not published. The Presidential Scholarship and Be A Husky Rate are awarded through Admissions and were not described as conflicting with foundation Huskies Scholarships, but no explicit institutional stacking rule was found.
From the St. Cloud State Common Data Set 2025-2026 (school-estimated figures):
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From St. Cloud State’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
25%of admitsget merit
Average award$1,889Covers ~7% of $28,412 cost of attendance
At St. Cloud State, roughly 1 in 4 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $1,889 — about 7% of total cost.
As filed in St. Cloud State's CDS Section H2A: of 719 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 183 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $1,889. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 508 of 3,947, averaging $2,370. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
The 2025-2026 column is marked "estimated" in the school's own CDS filing — school-projected figures, not final audited counts.
Named awards that don’t always surface on the main financial aid page. Each one has its own eligibility rules.
AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityWide range of donor criteria — includes first-year, transfer, graduate, first-generation, financial-need, and study-abroad students; one application covers 450+ awards.
2026-27 application window: February 2-March 15, 2026; accept offers before June 7, 2026. Must be enrolled when the scholarship is received.
Do I have to apply separately for the Presidential Scholarship?
No. All admitted new incoming first-year students are automatically considered; it is merit-based and awarded through the Office of Admissions with no additional application. You qualify with a 24 ACT or a 2.6+ cumulative high-school GPA on a 4.0 scale.
How much is the Presidential Scholarship and is it renewable?
It is $2,500, $1,500, $750, or $500 per year. The official page does not say which stats earn which amount. It is renewable for up to four years pending SCSU GPA and course completion (the exact renewal GPA is not published).
What is the deadline for the Huskies Scholarships?
For 2026-27 the single foundation application ran February 2 through March 15, 2026, and offers must be accepted with the required questionnaire before June 7, 2026 or they may be forfeited. One application covers more than 450 scholarships.
Do outside scholarships reduce my aid?
SCSU does not publish a specific displacement rule, but it requires you to report any outside scholarship, tuition waiver, or third-party funding via the Financial Aid Office's Scholarship Notification Form so it can be added to your package. Ask the aid office directly whether an outside award reduces your loans, your grants, or your merit scholarship.
How St. Cloud State compares across our verified dataset
135 of 750 verified schools in our dataset use unclear or unpublished displacement.
St. Cloud State is in a recognizable cluster (135 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
135 of 750 verified schools publish no clear displacement order.
St. Cloud State is one of them. The right move is the aid-office email script below, not a guess.
668 of 750 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
St. Cloud State 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 St. Cloud State’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
