A STEM-focused New Jersey private where merit scholarships are awarded automatically at admission and range from $2,000 up to full tuition, layered with a new Fall-2026 promise of full tuition for families earning $75,000 or less.
Verified Jul 20262 months ago
The short answer
Is Stevens worth a closer look?
Stevens may be worth checking, but its awards do not follow a simple grades-and-scores chart. Start with the published scholarships below.
Merit tiers2See who qualifies
First-year students with school awards35%First-year students, CDS 2024-2025
Research checkedJul 2026By our research team
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Published scholarships
These amounts and requirements come from the school’s own published pages. Open an award to see who qualifies and how to keep it.
Awarded automatically when you are admitted; no additional application is needed. Based on the strength of the admission application (academic record, test scores if submitted, and activities). Scholarships may not exceed the cost of tuition.
How to keep it
Renewable for up to eight full-time undergraduate semesters. Most merit scholarships require a minimum cumulative 2.0 GPA (calculated at the end of the spring semester) plus satisfactory academic progress.
Top merit tier…Top merit tier (within the $2,000-to-full-tuition range; specific amount not published)
Presidential Achievement Scholarship
Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies+
Who qualifies
Stevens' most prestigious merit-based award, recognizing outstanding academic excellence in the admission application. Awarded automatically at admission; no separate application. Holistic, not a published stat grid.
How to keep it
Requires a minimum cumulative 3.2 GPA and satisfactory academic progress, renewable for up to eight full-time undergraduate semesters.
These are the rules we would flag for your family. Each comes from Stevens's published information.
Renewal ruleStevens Merit Scholarships (automatic academic merit): renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Renewable for up to eight full-time undergraduate semesters. Most merit scholarships require a minimum cumulative 2.0 GPA (calculated at the end of the spring semester) plus satisfactory academic progress. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
Outside awardsNo published displacement order
Stevens'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.
What families often miss
You do not. Stevens states you are automatically considered for merit scholarships when you are admitted, with no additional application needed. The amount is determined holistically from your admission application.
The Stevens Investment covers full tuition only, through grants and scholarships, for qualifying first-year students from families earning $75,000 or less starting Fall 2026. Housing, dining, books, and personal expenses are still the family's responsibility, and loans and work-study do not count toward the tuition coverage.
Only the top awards (Presidential Achievement and Ann P. Neupauer) require a 3.2 cumulative GPA. The Clark Scholarship requires 2.8, and all other Stevens merit scholarships require only a 2.0 cumulative GPA, calculated at the end of the spring semester.
See award cutoffs and special programs+
Presidential Achievement Scholarship — Stevens' top automatic merit award
The Presidential Achievement Scholarship is Stevens' most prestigious merit-based award, recognizing students who exemplify outstanding academic excellence through their admission application. Like all Stevens merit scholarships, it is awarded automatically at admission with no separate application. What sets it apart is the renewal bar: it requires a minimum cumulative 3.2 GPA (versus the 2.0 floor that covers most other Stevens merit awards), maintained across up to eight full-time undergraduate semesters. Stevens merit scholarships overall range from $2,000 up to full tuition, with the cap being that a scholarship 'may not exceed the cost of tuition.' Families weighing Stevens should also factor in the Stevens Investment: beginning with the Fall 2026 incoming class, Stevens will cover full tuition for qualifying first-time, first-year students from families earning $75,000 or less per year — funded through grants and scholarships only, with loans and work-study explicitly not counting toward that coverage.
Engineering, computing, and applied-science students near the New York metro who want automatic academic merit with renewal GPAs that are modest (3.2 for the top Presidential Achievement award, 2.0 for most others), plus lower-income families who may qualify for the Stevens Investment full-tuition program starting Fall 2026.
Cost of attendance$87,926 for 2025-2026Each bar is the full published cost for that scenario, sized against the highest figure so totals compare at a glance.
On-campus$87,926
$66K
$20K
Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Books
Personal
Loan fees
Personal/miscellaneous published as a single 'Miscellaneous' line for on-campus residents; no separate transportation line for on-campus.
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Stevens, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at Stevens, academic year 2021-22
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$27,221
$30,001–$48,000
$27,603
$48,001–$75,000
$33,102
$75,001–$110,000
$38,095
$110,001+
$49,538
All income levels (average)
$41,346
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23
$63,462
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$41,346
That works out to roughly a 48% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $79,790 (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
87%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
94%
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)
$108,772
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
20%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
53%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
Stevens requires students to report outside scholarships to the Office of Financial Aid but does not publish a displacement formula stating whether outside awards reduce institutional aid, loans, or unmet need first. Because Stevens merit scholarships cannot exceed the cost of tuition, an outside award could push a near-full-tuition package over that cap and trigger an adjustment. Confirm the treatment with the aid office before counting on it.
Stevens' terms and conditions require students to inform the Office of Financial Aid of any outside assistance not already included in their award, and merit scholarships 'may not exceed the cost of tuition.' The published terms do not specify the order in which outside awards reduce institutional grant aid, loans, or unmet need, so the displacement methodology is decided case-by-case.
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From Stevens’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
35%of admitsget merit
Average award$26,284Covers ~30% of $87,926 cost of attendance
At Stevens, roughly 1 in 3 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $26,284 — about 30% of total cost.
As filed in Stevens's CDS Section H2A: of 1,054 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 364 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $26,284. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 1,578 of 4,190, averaging $24,450. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
Receive institutional merit35%First-year students, Common Data Set 2024-2025
Average merit award$26,284Across recipients, Common Data Set 2024-2025
These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.
AmountUp to $6,000 per year (up to $24,000 over four years)EligibilityQualified high-school seniors who participated on a FIRST robotics team during their junior year; merit-based, renewable for up to four years.
Yes. Stevens says you are automatically considered for merit scholarships when you are admitted, with no additional application needed. Awards are based on the strength of your admission application and range from $2,000 up to full tuition.
What GPA do I need to keep my Stevens scholarship?
It depends on the award. The Presidential Achievement and Ann P. Neupauer scholarships require a minimum cumulative 3.2 GPA; the Clark Scholarship requires 2.8; and all other merit scholarships require a 2.0 cumulative GPA, measured at the end of the spring semester. Awards renew for up to eight full-time semesters.
What is the Stevens Investment and who qualifies?
Beginning with the Fall 2026 incoming class, Stevens will cover full tuition for qualifying first-time, first-year, full-time students from families earning $75,000 or less per year (with assets in the typical range, who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents and live on campus the first year). It is funded by grants and scholarships; loans and work-study do not count toward it.
Will an outside scholarship reduce my Stevens aid?
Possibly. Stevens requires you to report any outside assistance to the Office of Financial Aid, and Stevens merit scholarships cannot exceed the cost of tuition. There is no published displacement formula, so an outside award could trigger an adjustment if your package is already near full tuition. Confirm with the aid office first.
What does Stevens cost?
For 2025-26, Stevens lists tuition and fees at $65,606 and a total on-campus cost of attendance of $87,926, which includes housing, meals, books, supplies, and miscellaneous expenses.
See sources and other schools+
How Stevens compares
133 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use unclear or unpublished displacement.
Stevens is in a recognizable cluster (133 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
133 of 749 verified schools publish no clear displacement order.
Stevens is one of them. The right move is the aid-office email script below, not a guess.
665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Stevens is one of them. The cohort minority (84 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 Stevens’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
