Tusculum University · Tennessee

Tusculum Merit Aid

Verified Jun 20262 months ago· HX-AUTO

Merit tiers101 automatic on stats

Last verifiedJun 2026Analyst HX-AUTO

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Checking merit aid at Tusculum

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The merit-aid verdict at Tusculum

Tusculum rewards academic commitment, first-generation college students, and Tennessee residents with a range of merit-based awards.

Who this school is for

First-generation students, Tennessee residents, and community college transfers will find the most clearly defined pathways to Tusculum's merit awards.

Tuition / cost of attendance: Approximately $51,584 for 2026-2027. Source

Federal cost and outcome data

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

Average annual net price by family income at Tusculum, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$20,766
$30,001–$48,000	$15,124
$48,001–$75,000	$17,519
$75,001–$110,000	$22,981
$110,001+	$25,563
All income levels (average)	$21,131

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $29,250
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $21,131

That works out to roughly a 52% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $43,776 (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: 25%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 63%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $23,250 (~$246/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $44,367
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 46%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 53%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not Tusculum'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 Tusculum'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.

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.

Amount not published

Tusculum Academic Scholarship

Automatic

Source

Amount not published

Tusculum Scholarship

ApplicationRenewable

Source

Up to $1,000

Tennessee General Assembly Merit Scholarship

Application

GPA: 3.75
SAT: 1330
ACT: 29

Source

Up to $500

First In Family Scholarship

Application

Source

Amount not published

Tusculum Scholarship For Transfers

ApplicationRenewable

Source

$12,000–$13,000

Tusculum Charter Scholarship

ApplicationRenewable

GPA: 3

Source

$250

Pathways Scholarship

Application

Source

$13,000–$15,000

Tusculum Legacy Scholarship

ApplicationRenewable

GPA: 3.9

Source

Amount not published

International Scholarship

ApplicationRenewable

Source

$12,500–$14,000

Tusculum Heritage Scholarship

ApplicationRenewable

GPA: 3.5

Source

Lesser-known scholarships at Tusculum

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

Phi Theta Kappa

Amount$250EligibilityPhi Theta Kappa is an honors scholarship for transfer students with the Phi Theta Kappa designation on their final academic transcript; the award is $250 per semester.

Source

How Tusculum compares across our verified dataset

668 of 750 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Tusculum 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 Tusculum’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

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