Massive Florida public in Orlando where in-state students stack the state's Bright Futures scholarship on top of UCF's Pegasus awards and an in-state cost of $26K, while National Merit Scholars chase the Benacquisto Scholarship for a near-full ride.
Verified Jul 20262 months ago· CC-1
The short answer
Is UCF worth a closer look?
UCF is worth checking if your student has strong grades or scores. We found 2 published awards, and one is based on those numbers.
Merit tiers21 based on grades or scores
First-year students with school awards12%First-year students, CDS 2023-2024
Research checkedJul 2026By our research team
Free Merit Check
See what UCF's published rules mean for your student. Takes 30 seconds.
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.
Amount varies…Amount varies; not publicly published on the UCF scholarship landing page
Pegasus Scholarships
Based on grades or scoresCan continue
See who qualifies+
Who qualifies
Awarded to students upon admission to UCF. No separate scholarship application required for the automatic Pegasus pool.
How to keep it
Renewal terms not publicly disclosed on the landing page; verify in the individual scholarship offer letter.
Notes
Catch-all term for UCF's institutional merit awards. Tier names and dollar amounts appear in the admission decision rather than on the public page.
High school graduates recognized as a National Merit Scholar by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Available at participating Florida public universities including UCF.
How to keep it
Renewable for four years (state-funded program).
Notes
Florida's flagship state-funded National Merit award. Combined with Bright Futures and federal aid, it can fully cover UCF's cost of attendance for qualifying recipients.
These are the rules we would flag for your family. Each comes from UCF's published information.
renewalPegasus Scholarships: renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Renewal terms not publicly disclosed on the landing page; verify in the individual scholarship offer letter. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
capHard $42,800 cost-of-attendance ceiling
Institutional aid at UCF cannot push the package past $42,800. Big outside wins can mathematically reduce institutional grant once the ceiling is reached.
What families often miss
The Benacquisto Scholarship is a state-funded program available only at participating Florida public universities including UCF. National Merit Scholars from Florida who attend out-of-state schools forfeit a four-year cost-of-attendance award.
UCF requires students to use the Self-Report Tool to disclose outside awards. Late disclosure can cause mid-year package revisions, with grants, work-study, or loans reduced without a guaranteed loan-first order.
Out-of-state tuition and fees alone are $22,482, pushing UCF's non-resident on-campus total to $42,800. The Pegasus awards are not deep enough to close that gap for most out-of-state students without independent need-based aid.
See costs and school data+
Who this school may work for
Florida residents whose primary aid path is Bright Futures + Pegasus stacking to keep total cost under $30K, and National Merit Scholars (any state, but especially Florida residents) targeting the Benacquisto award.
Cost of attendance$26,272–$42,800 for 2026-27Each 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$42,800
$22K
$15K
In-state, on-campus$26,272
$6.0K
$15K
Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Books
Travel
Personal
Non-Florida resident direct on-campus total. Florida resident direct on-campus total $26,272. FL tuition & fees $5,954 / non-FL $22,482. Housing $8,750, food $6,170. Indirect (books $1,200, transport, personal) adds ~$3,000-5,000.
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at UCF, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at UCF, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$5,816
$30,001–$48,000
$7,174
$48,001–$75,000
$10,128
$75,001–$110,000
$14,902
$110,001+
$17,681
All income levels (average)
$10,411
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23
$6,368
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23
$22,467
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$10,411
That works out to roughly a 55% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $23,133 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
UCF 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
78%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
92%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$18,190 (~$193/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$58,308
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
25%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
17%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
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): "Failure to report outside financial aid awards (i.e. scholarships) could result in reduction or cancellation of financial aid administered by Student Financial Assistance. Federal and state regulations state that a student cannot receive scholarships and other need-based financial aid in excess of their financial need. Regulations also state that the combined amount of a student's aid cannot exceed their cost of attendance if the student also receives any institutional, federal, or state aid."
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From UCF’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
12%of admitsget merit
Average award$3,534Covers ~8% of $42,800 cost of attendance
At UCF, roughly 1 in 8 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $3,534 — about 8% of total cost.
As filed in UCF's CDS Section H2A: of 7,226 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 893 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $3,534. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 3,600 of 41,433, averaging $3,375. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.
AmountTiered state award; covers a portion to all of UCF tuition and fees depending on tierEligibilityFlorida high school graduates meeting the state's GPA, test, and service-hour thresholds. Award level determined by the state of Florida, not UCF.
Stacks with Pegasus institutional merit. Effectively the cornerstone of UCF's affordability story for in-state families.
Pegasus is UCF's umbrella term for institutional merit scholarships 'awarded to students upon admission to UCF.' Specific dollar amounts and tier names are not on the public scholarship page — they appear in the admission decision letter.
What is the Benacquisto Scholarship and how does it work at UCF?
A Florida state-funded merit scholarship for high school graduates recognized as National Merit Scholars. At participating Florida public universities including UCF, the Benacquisto effectively covers the cost of attendance for four years for qualifying recipients.
Can I stack Bright Futures with UCF's institutional aid?
Yes. Florida Bright Futures is the state-tiered foundation; UCF's Pegasus awards layer on top up to UCF's published Cost of Attendance ceiling. The combined stack is the standard affordability path for Florida residents at UCF.
How much does UCF cost?
Florida residents on-campus: $26,272 direct cost (tuition & fees $5,954). Non-residents on-campus: $42,800 direct cost (tuition & fees $22,482). Both totals include housing ($8,750) and food ($6,170); books and personal expenses add another $3-5K.
How does UCF treat outside scholarships?
UCF asks students to self-report outside awards. If the total package would exceed the published Cost of Attendance or assessed need, UCF reserves the right to reduce grants, work-study, or loans without committing to a specific order. Confirm impact with Financial Aid before depositing.
See sources and other schools+
How UCF compares
241 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use cost-of-attendance cap displacement.
UCF 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.
667 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
UCF 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.
132 of 749 verified schools publish a dedicated National Merit Finalist package.
UCF is one of them. NMF packages typically carry their own stacking and renewal carve-outs separate from the standard automatic merit ladder; confirm those before assuming the headline NMF value is final.
Sources used on this page
Every claim is checked against UCF’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
