Northern California UC with the system's typical thin merit ladder — the $7,500 invitation-only Regents Scholarship plus a campus scholarship pool ranging $100-$15,000/year — but one of the cleanest published displacement orders in higher ed (outside scholarships hit unmet need first, then self-help, then grants last).
Verified May 20263 months ago· CB-1
The short answer
Is UC Davis worth a closer look?
UC Davis may be worth checking, but its awards do not follow a simple grades-and-scores chart. Start with the published scholarships below.
Merit tiers3See who qualifies
First-year students with school awards3%First-year students, CDS 2024-2025
Research checkedMay 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.
$7,500 per year
Regents Scholarship
Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies+
Who qualifies
Invitation-only. Approximately 150 freshmen and transfers selected annually from the full UC application pool. Both California residents and non-residents eligible. UC Application due November 30 (December 2 final deadline in some published sources). Auto-considered through the UC application — no separate application.
How to keep it
Renewable up to 4 years (or remaining undergraduate terms for transfers) with a minimum 3.25 cumulative GPA and continued full-time good academic standing.
Notes
Regents Scholars receive priority registration and guaranteed on-campus housing for the first two years, plus access to dedicated Regents events. Students with demonstrated financial need may receive a need-based stipend supplement layered on top of the $7,500 honorarium.
Not publicly disclosed in a tier ta…Not publicly disclosed in a tier table
Provost Award
Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies+
Who qualifies
Auto-considered through the UC Application. Announced at the time of admission alongside Regents notifications. Minimum 3.25 cumulative GPA required across all UC Davis campus scholarships.
Notes
Second-tier campus merit award. UC Davis does not publish the dollar amount or stat profile on the main scholarships page. Confirm specifics in writing if offered.
Minimum 3.25 cumulative GPA for any UC Davis-based scholarship
See who qualifies and how to keep it+
Who qualifies
Auto-considered through UC Application for entering students. Continuing students complete the Undergraduate Scholarship Application beginning October 1; deadline January 7 for the next academic year. Open to national, international, undocumented, and AB540 students.
Notes
The campus pool totals more than $7 million annually but is fragmented across hundreds of donor-restricted awards. Most are one-year awards that require an annual reapplication, so even a strong recipient should plan to apply each cycle.
These are the rules we would flag for your family. Each comes from UC Davis's published information.
renewalRegents Scholarship: renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Renewable up to 4 years (or remaining undergraduate terms for transfers) with a minimum 3.25 cumulative GPA and continued full-time good academic standing. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
What families often miss
The Regents Scholarship is $7,500 per year. The UC out-of-state supplemental tuition is roughly $35,000+ on top of in-state tuition. Even a Regents recipient still pays substantially more out-of-pocket as a non-resident than as a resident. Non-resident families should model UC Davis on the full out-of-state COA minus $7,500, not on the in-state number.
UC Davis campus scholarships are mostly one-year awards. Continuing students must reapply annually starting October 1, with a January 7 deadline (including at least one letter of recommendation) for the next academic year's awards. Many recipients miss this window after freshman year and lose access to the campus pool entirely.
UC Davis emphasizes that merit is the primary basis for scholarship awards and that FAFSA filing is not required for most consideration. However, a 'small number' of merit scholarships have a financial need component that is only verified through FAFSA or CADAA, and the Regents Scholarship's optional stipend supplement is need-based. File the FAFSA/CADAA by California's March 2 deadline to keep every option open.
Only the Regents Scholarship is structured as a multi-year renewable award (with 3.25 GPA renewal). The majority of UC Davis campus scholarships are one-year awards. Build the four-year budget around the Regents (if offered), in-state Cal Grant/Pell if eligible, and the assumption that the campus pool may or may not repeat year over year.
See costs and school data+
Who this school may work for
Strong students who picked UC Davis on academic fit and are not relying on merit to close the cost gap; California residents whose budget already works with in-state COA, and non-residents who understand the Regents alone does not offset the OOS surcharge.
Cost of attendance$46,764–$84,366 for 2025-2026Each bar is the full published cost for that scenario, sized against the highest figure so totals compare at a glance.
Out-of-state, on-campus$84,366
$55K
$21K
In-state, on-campus$46,764
$18K
$21K
Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Health insurance
Books
Personal
Travel
On-Campus Residence Hall budget. Tuition & fees combines Systemwide Tuition and Fees ($14,934), Campus-based Fees ($2,417) and Document Fee ($150). Nonresident adds Systemwide Nonresident Supplemental Tuition ($37,602).
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at UC Davis, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at UC Davis, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$9,211
$30,001–$48,000
$9,966
$48,001–$75,000
$11,951
$75,001–$110,000
$16,294
$110,001+
$31,272
All income levels (average)
$14,741
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23
$16,774
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23
$50,974
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$14,741
That works out to roughly a 64% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $41,238 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
UC Davis 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
86%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
93%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$13,000 (~$138/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$80,838
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
33%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
21%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
UC Davis publishes one of the clearest displacement orders in higher education: incoming scholarships (UC Davis or outside) first cover unmet need, then reduce self-help (loans and work-study), and only reduce grants and other gift aid as a last resort. That makes outside scholarships unusually safe to layer on.
Per UC Davis Financial Aid and Scholarships, when a UC Davis or outside agency/private scholarship is credited to a student account, the dollars first cover any remaining unmet need, then replace the student's self-help expectation (loans and work-study), and only reduce grants and other gift aid as a last resort. Scholarships are typically split across fall, winter, and spring quarters.
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From UC Davis’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
3%of admitsget merit
Average award$8,659Covers ~10% of $84,366 cost of attendance
At UC Davis, roughly 1 in 33 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $8,659 — about 10% of total cost.
As filed in UC Davis's CDS Section H2A: of 6,615 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 222 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $8,659. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 1,494 of 31,464, averaging $8,272. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.
AmountTuition and student services fees coverage when combined with Cal Grant and PellEligibilityCalifornia residents with demonstrated financial need; auto-considered through FAFSA/CADAA. Need-based, not merit.
AmountVaries; embedded within the $7M+ annual campus poolEligibilityMajor-, geography-, or background-restricted awards administered by individual colleges and departments. Often require a brief departmental form on top of the master scholarship application.
UC Davis offers limited stat-driven merit aid relative to private peers. The flagship award is the $7,500 Regents Scholarship, an invitation-only award going to ~150 freshmen and transfers annually based on the UC Application. The Provost Award is a second-tier institutional award announced at admission. Beyond these, UC Davis distributes more than $7 million annually through a campus scholarship pool with awards ranging $100-$17,000 per year — almost all are one-year awards requiring annual reapplication.
Do outside scholarships reduce my UC Davis aid?
Outside scholarships are unusually safe at UC Davis. Per the published policy, when a scholarship (UC Davis or outside) is credited to a student account, the dollars first cover unmet need, then replace self-help (loans and work-study), and only reduce grants as a last resort. For students with unmet need or loans in their package, outside scholarships are effectively additive to grant aid.
Can out-of-state students get the Regents Scholarship at UC Davis?
Yes. The Regents Scholarship is open to both California residents and non-residents. The $7,500 amount is the same regardless of residency. Non-residents should note this does not offset the OOS supplemental tuition, which is roughly $35,000+ on top of in-state tuition — Regents alone is not enough to close the residency gap.
Do I need to file the FAFSA for UC Davis merit scholarships?
Generally no — UC Davis treats merit as the primary basis for scholarship awards and lists no FAFSA requirement for most campus awards. The exceptions: a 'small number' of merit awards have a need component that requires FAFSA/CADAA, and the Regents Scholarship's optional stipend supplement is need-based. File the FAFSA or CADAA by California's March 2 deadline to maximize eligibility.
When is the UC Davis scholarship application deadline?
Entering students are auto-considered through the UC Application (November 30 priority). Continuing students apply through the Undergraduate Scholarship Application, which opens October 1 and closes January 7 with at least one letter of recommendation for the following academic year. California residents must also file FAFSA or CADAA by March 2 to be eligible for need-based grants and Cal Grant.
See sources and other schools+
How UC Davis compares
147 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use loan-first displacement.
UC Davis is in a recognizable cluster (147 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
667 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
UC Davis 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 UC Davis’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
