University of Maryland· Scholarship Stacking

Stacking Outside Scholarships at University of Maryland

How University of Maryland treats outside scholarships when they arrive on top of institutional merit aid.

Verified Jul 202615 days ago· HX-AUTO

The verdict

Loan-first displacement

At University of Maryland, an outside scholarship reduces loan offers before touching institutional grants. The strategy follows from that: every $1 in outside scholarship is effectively $1 less in graduation debt.

financialaid.umd.edu publishes the $32,408 cost-of-attendance worksheet the math is run against.

Stacking policy at University of Maryland

Outside scholarships reduce loans and/or work-study first; institutional grants are only reduced if required to prevent an over-award.

Verified policy language (2026-07-02): An overaward is when the total financial aid funds received by the student exceed their calculated financial need and/or their total cost of attendance. ... Overawards are resolved by reducing and/or canceling the financial aid offered. Undisbursed loans will be reduced before any reduction is made to previously disbursed awards. Overawards typically occur when the Office of Student Financial Aid, at the time of releasing the financial aid offer, is not aware of additional financial assistance a student is receiving. Students are responsible for notifying our office as soon as they are aware of additional aid they will receive. Separately, the school's own award-stacking rules: UMD's five institutional merit scholarships (Banneker/Key, Frederick Douglass, Maryland Transfer, President's, and Dean's) cannot be combined with each other. Students may receive only one. Official Banneker/Key policy snapshot states students may receive only one of Banneker/Key, Frederick Douglass, Maryland Transfer, President's, or Dean's; these cannot be combined with one another but can be combined with other grants and scholarships, subject to the stated cost-of-attendance cap. (per https://financialaid.umd.edu/resources-policies/bannekerkey-scholarship-policy)

Source: https://financialaid.umd.edu/resources-policies/overawards

Aid-office script (copy & send)

A binding written answer beats a verbal hallway promise. This script is keyed to University of Maryland'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 University of Maryland 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://financialaid.umd.edu/resources-policies/overawards and the $32,408 cost-of-attendance worksheet.

If I win a $5,000 outside scholarship after the package is built, can you confirm it reduces my Direct Loan offer first, before any institutional grant is touched?

If the loan offer is smaller than the outside award, what is the next aid type that gets reduced (work-study, institutional grant, other)?

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 University of Maryland compares across our verified dataset

145 of 750 verified schools in our dataset use loan-first displacement.
University of Maryland is in a recognizable cluster (145 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
669 of 750 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
University of Maryland is one of them. The cohort minority (81 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 University of Maryland’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.