STU (Miami)· Scholarship Stacking

Stacking Outside Scholarships at STU (Miami)

How STU (Miami) treats outside scholarships when they arrive on top of institutional merit aid.

Verified Jul 202625 days ago· COWORK

The verdict

Cost-of-attendance cap

At STU (Miami), an outside scholarship only triggers a cut when total aid would exceed cost of attendance. The strategy follows from that: outside scholarships are upside until the package would push past COA, at which point they start replacing institutional grants.

Stacking policy at STU (Miami)

Outside scholarships only trigger an aid adjustment if total aid would exceed the cost of attendance (or the student's aid eligibility cap); below that ceiling, awards are not displaced.

Verified policy language (2026-07-02): You must notify the Office of Financial Aid if you are awarded any of these scholarships to avoid being over met on your Cost of Attendance.

Source: https://www.stu.edu/financial-aid/external-scholarships/

Common stacking mistakes

Expecting outside or extra state money to stack on top of the full package.
STU 'reserves the right to review and adjust original financial aid award packages, including university-funded scholarships and/or grants received as additional funding from federal, state, or private source.'

Rules that bite at STU (Miami)

The trip wires we'd flag in a custom playbook. Each is derived from STU (Miami)'s own published policy, not generic advice.

renewalSTU Bright Futures: renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Renewable up to four years of full-time undergraduate study with good academic standing at STU and with the Bright Futures program. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.

Aid-office script (copy & send)

A binding written answer beats a verbal hallway promise. This script is keyed to STU (Miami)'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 STU (Miami) 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.stu.edu/financial-aid/external-scholarships/.

If my package is institutional merit + Pell + a $5,000 outside scholarship and the total stays under the COA worksheet, can you confirm no institutional dollar is reduced?

If the same outside award pushes the total over COA by $X, which aid line item shrinks first: institutional grant, loan, or work-study?

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 STU (Miami) compares across our verified dataset

241 of 750 verified schools in our dataset use cost-of-attendance cap displacement.
STU (Miami) is in a recognizable cluster (241 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
668 of 750 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
STU (Miami) 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 STU (Miami)’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.