How much does UF Online cost for 2026-27?

The SFA 2026-27 UF Online COA totals: $21,696 in-state (off-campus), $12,106 in-state living with parents, $34,400 out-of-state. Tuition/fees alone are projected at $3,876 in-state / $16,580 out-of-state for 30 credit hours ($129.18 vs $552.62 per credit hour).

UF Online· Scholarship Stacking

Stacking Outside Scholarships at UF Online

How UF Online treats outside scholarships when they arrive on top of institutional merit aid.

Verified Jun 20264 days ago· COWORK

The verdict

Mixed displacement

At UF Online, an outside scholarship is treated category-by-category, where some aid stacks and some displaces. The strategy follows from that: the answer depends on which aid category the outside award lands against, so get the order in writing.

sfa.ufl.edu publishes the $21,696 cost-of-attendance worksheet the math is run against.

Stacking policy at UF Online

Two explicit rules found: (1) an out-of-state tuition scholarship cannot be combined with another out-of-state tuition scholarship because both waive the same portion of non-resident tuition, and it is cancelled if the student becomes a Florida resident; (2) the Benacquisto Scholarship is an offset award — it equals in-state COA minus Bright Futures minus the National Merit award, so other aid directly reduces it. General outside-scholarship displacement policy was not found on the pages opened.

OOS tuition scholarships: no combining with other OOS tuition waivers (e.g., School of Music's); cancelled upon in-state reclassification. Benacquisto: 'an award equal to the standard institutional cost of attendance for an in-state student minus the sum of Bright Futures and the National Merit award.' SFA-awarded scholarships are automatically considered from the FAFSA (need + 3.0 GPA + donor criteria).

Source: https://www.sfa.ufl.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships/

Common stacking mistakes

National Merit families overestimating Benacquisto
Benacquisto pays in-state COA MINUS Bright Futures MINUS the National Merit award — it backfills rather than stacks — it cannot fund summer coursework, and 'Special' corporate or 'Presidential' NM awards don't qualify at all. (Confirm current program funding with OSFA — state appropriations have varied.)
Assuming Bright Futures pays for any course
'Florida Bright Futures may only be used toward coursework that applies toward a student's degree program' — stray electives outside the degree plan aren't covered.

Stacking questions families ask

How much does UF Online cost for 2026-27?: The SFA 2026-27 UF Online COA totals: $21,696 in-state (off-campus), $12,106 in-state living with parents, $34,400 out-of-state. Tuition/fees alone are projected at $3,876 in-state / $16,580 out-of-state for 30 credit hours ($129.18 vs $552.62 per credit hour).

Rules that bite at UF Online

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

displacementDifferent aid types are displaced differently
UF Online treats loans, work-study, and institutional grant under different rules. The same $5,000 outside award can land against any of them depending on category.

Aid-office script (copy & send)

A binding written answer beats a verbal hallway promise. This script is keyed to UF Online'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 UF Online 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.sfa.ufl.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships/ and the $21,696 cost-of-attendance worksheet.

Which institutional aid types are protected from outside-award displacement, and which can be reduced?

Is the displacement order published anywhere internally, even if not on the public site? Families need this to compare schools.

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 UF Online compares across our verified dataset

86 of 751 verified schools in our dataset use mixed displacement.
UF Online is in the modest minority (86 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
669 of 751 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
UF Online 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.
133 of 751 verified schools publish a dedicated National Merit Finalist package.
UF Online 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 UF Online’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.