What does Mount Union cost?

Per the 2026-2027 COA page: tuition $37,300, technology fee $500, on-campus food and housing $13,490, plus books, transportation, equipment, and personal allowances (no single total is printed; the on-campus line items sum to roughly $55,300). COA figures determine aid eligibility and are not the bill.

Mount Union· Scholarship Stacking

Stacking Outside Scholarships at Mount Union

How Mount Union treats outside scholarships when they arrive on top of institutional merit aid.

Verified Jun 20264 days ago· COWORK

The verdict

Mixed displacement

At Mount Union, 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.

mountunion.edu publishes the $55,344 cost-of-attendance worksheet the math is run against.

Stacking policy at Mount Union

Students eligible for multiple Mount Union awards receive at least the value of the highest single award — not the sum. Any portion of a second award is based on financial need and requires the FAFSA. The maximum total award equals full tuition; full-tuition recipients get nothing additional. For ROTC full-tuition recipients, all other Mount Union awards become honorary, and private outside scholarships that exceed direct costs reduce the ROTC room-and-board benefit.

Highest-award rule with a full-tuition ceiling (Multiple Merit Awards policy); first-year merit awards cut by $3,000 for living off campus; ROTC room/board benefit reduced by federal/state grants and by outside scholarships exceeding direct costs. A fuller stacking policy lives in the Financial Aid Handbook (not opened in this extraction).

Source: https://www.mountunion.edu/admission/presidential-scholarship-program

Common stacking mistakes

Skipping the FAFSA because you only expect merit aid.
The FAFSA Filer Grant pays simply for filing (renewable if filed yearly), and any second-award stacking beyond your highest merit award is need-based and requires the FAFSA.
ROTC students counting on keeping institutional merit money.
For full-tuition ROTC recipients, 'All other Mount Union grants or scholarships awarded at the time of admission become honorary,' the room/board benefit is reduced by federal/state grants, and private outside scholarships exceeding direct costs reduce the room-and-board scholarship.

Stacking questions families ask

What does Mount Union cost?: Per the 2026-2027 COA page: tuition $37,300, technology fee $500, on-campus food and housing $13,490, plus books, transportation, equipment, and personal allowances (no single total is printed; the on-campus line items sum to roughly $55,300). COA figures determine aid eligibility and are not the bill.

Rules that bite at Mount Union

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

renewalFirst-Year Merit Scholarships (Trustee / Founder's / Dean's / Hartshorn): renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Scholarships are renewable each year at the amount originally awarded (maximum of eight semesters). Students must be full time (12 credit hours) and remain in good academic standing. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
displacementDifferent aid types are displaced differently
Mount Union 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 Mount Union'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 Mount Union 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.mountunion.edu/admission/presidential-scholarship-program and the $55,344 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 Mount Union compares across our verified dataset

86 of 751 verified schools in our dataset use mixed displacement.
Mount Union 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.
Mount Union 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 Mount Union’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.