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University of Oregon · Oregon

Oregon scholarships and merit aid

Oregon's flagship public with two parallel automatic merit ladders — UO Excellence/Summit/Apex worth $10k-$20k per year for non-residents, plus a smaller $2k-$5k Oregon-resident track — and an explicit no-displacement rule for outside scholarships on the Apex award.

Verified Jul 20262 months ago· CB-1

The short answer

Is Oregon worth a closer look?

Oregon is worth checking if your student has strong grades or scores. We found 8 published awards, and 2 are based on those numbers.

Merit tiers82 based on grades or scores
Research checkedJul 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.

$5,000 per year…$5,000 per year ($20,000 over 4 years)

Summit Scholarship (Oregon Resident)

Based on grades or scoresCan continue
GPA
Minimum 3.90 high school GPA on a 4.00 scale
See who qualifies and how to keep it
Who qualifies

No prior college enrollment after high school graduation. No separate application. Apply for admission by January 15 and submit all materials by February 15.

How to keep it

Renewable for up to 12 academic terms (excluding summer) within 5 years; 15 terms within 6 years for BLA, BIARC, BARCH. Renewal requires 3.00 cumulative UO GPA + 12 UO credits per term.

Notes

Summit CANNOT be combined with the Apex Scholarship or UO Excellence Scholarship — students get one or the other.

Source

$12,500 per year…$12,500 per year ($50,000 over 4 years)

Summit Scholarship (Non-Resident)

Based on grades or scoresCan continue
GPA
Minimum 3.90 high school GPA on a 4.00 scale
See who qualifies and how to keep it
Who qualifies

Non-Oregon residents. No prior college enrollment after high school. No separate application.

How to keep it

Renewable for up to 12 academic terms (15 for BLA/BIARC/BARCH); 3.00 cumulative UO GPA + 12 UO credits per term. If residency status changes to in-state, award reduces to the $5,000 resident Summit amount.

Notes

Non-residents at the 3.90 GPA threshold get a 2.5x larger Summit than Oregon residents — the structure is built to recruit OOS students.

Source

$20,000 per year

UO Excellence Scholarship (Non-Resident only)

Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies
Who qualifies

Highly selective; reserved for first-time freshmen non-residents. No separate application — selected by the admissions process. Cannot combine with the Summit Scholarship.

How to keep it

Renewable for 12 academic terms (15 for approved 5-year programs) within 5 years of initial enrollment. If residency status changes to in-state, award becomes the Oregon-resident Summit at $5,000/yr.

Notes

UO's top automatic non-resident merit award. Final scholarship letters by April 1.

Source

$10,000 per year

Apex Scholarship (Non-Resident)

Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies
Who qualifies

Non-residents selected by Admissions. No separate application. Reserved for first-time freshmen beginning fall after high school graduation (gap-year requests must be approved in writing).

How to keep it

12 academic terms (15 for 5-yr programs) within 5 years. Maintain honorable grades. Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships monitors continued eligibility.

Notes

Outside scholarships explicitly DO NOT affect the Apex award — Oregon publishes this as a quoted policy.

Source

$2,000 per year

Apex Scholarship (Oregon Resident)

Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies
Who qualifies

Oregon residents selected by Admissions. No separate application.

How to keep it

12 academic terms within 5 years; maintain honorable grades and full-time enrollment.

Source

$9,000 per year

Presidential Scholarship (Oregon Resident, separate app)

Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies
Who qualifies

Oregon residents; separate application required. Deadline February 2. Can be combined with Summit per Summit terms.

Source

$7,500 per year

Duck Excellence Scholarship (separate app)

Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies
Who qualifies

Available to both Oregon residents and non-residents. Separate application required. Deadline February 2. Can stack with Summit per Summit terms.

Source

Resident: tuition…Resident: tuition, fees, enrichment funds, food and housing. Non-resident: tuition and fees.

Stamps Scholarship (separate app)

Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies
Who qualifies

Highly competitive. Separate application required. Deadline November 12 — significantly earlier than other UO scholarship deadlines.

Notes

UO's most generous award. The Nov 12 deadline is the most common money-on-the-table mistake among top applicants.

Source

See what could change an award

Rules that could change the answer

These are the rules we would flag for your family. Each comes from Oregon's published information.

  • renewalApex Scholarship (Oregon Resident): renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out

    12 academic terms within 5 years; maintain honorable grades and full-time enrollment. 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

  1. The Stamps Scholarship is UO's most generous award — full tuition, fees, enrichment funds, food, and housing for Oregon residents; tuition and fees for non-residents. The deadline is November 12, more than 2 months before the standard January 15 admission deadline. Top applicants who only learn about UO scholarships in January have already missed Stamps consideration.

  2. Summit explicitly cannot be combined with the Apex Scholarship or UO Excellence Scholarship — students receive one of the three, whichever is largest. Summit DOES combine with Presidential, Duck Excellence, and General University Scholarships. Map your stacking ladder before assuming both an automatic and a competitive award are additive.

  3. If you were awarded a non-resident scholarship (Summit $12,500, UO Excellence $20,000, or Apex $10,000) and later qualify for in-state tuition — through formal residency, Tuition Equity status, staff family tuition benefits, or VA education benefits — your scholarship reduces to the corresponding resident amount effective the term you gain status. The cost-of-attendance math sometimes still favors in-state status, but run the numbers before initiating the change.

  4. UO's Apex policy is unusually stacker-friendly: outside scholarships do not affect the Apex amount. This is a meaningful advantage over peer publics that displace institutional aid dollar-for-dollar. But the policy is explicit only about Apex — verify in writing whether the same no-displacement rule applies to Summit, UO Excellence, and Presidential before assuming.

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

Non-residents are the primary target: a 3.90+ GPA out-of-state student can stack the nonresident Summit ($12,500/yr) with departmental and outside scholarships, since UO scholarship awards don't reduce based on outside aid. Oregon residents at the very top end should pursue Stamps and Presidential by their separate-application deadlines.

Cost of attendance$38,607–$68,931 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$68,931
In-state, on-campus$38,607
  • Tuition & fees
  • Housing & food
  • Books
  • Personal
  • Travel

New incoming undergraduate, on-campus. Living Expenses is on-campus housing and food. Personal is Miscellaneous Personal Expenses. Resident and nonresident transportation differ ($456 vs $1,458). Excludes one-time matriculation fee.

Oregon cost-of-attendance source

Cost and graduation facts

Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Oregon, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.

Average annual net price by family income at Oregon, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family incomeAverage net price paid
$0–$30,000$15,909
$30,001–$48,000$15,760
$48,001–$75,000$18,364
$75,001–$110,000$24,704
$110,001+$31,021
All income levels (average)$22,182

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23
$16,137
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23
$44,598
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$22,182

That works out to roughly a 36% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $34,793 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).

Oregon 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
72%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
86%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$20,139 (~$214/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$61,324
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
23%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
33%
See other scholarships and cost examples

If your student brings another scholarship

UO's Apex Scholarship policy is explicit no-displacement: outside scholarships do not reduce the Apex amount. The Summit cannot combine with Apex or UO Excellence (one or the other), but combines with Presidential, Duck Excellence, and General University Scholarships. Residency change downstream reduces non-resident awards to resident-equivalent amounts.

Per UO's Apex Scholarship FAQ, receipt of scholarships from organizations and agencies other than the University of Oregon will not affect the Apex Scholarship. The Summit Scholarship combines with other UO scholarships such as Presidential, Duck Excellence, and General University — but not with Apex or UO Excellence. Residency changes (gaining Oregon residency, Tuition Equity, staff tuition benefits, VA in-state) reduce non-resident scholarships to the corresponding resident amount effective the term residency is gained.

Source

Other Oregon scholarships worth checking

These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.

AmountFull tuition and feesEligibilityOregon residents who are Federal Pell Grant eligible. Auto-considered through admission and FAFSA. Need-based.

Source

Amount$6,000 per yearEligibilityOregon residents; auto-considered through admission application.

Source

AmountTuition and FeesEligibilityOregon residents; separate application required, rolling deadline.

Source

Amount$2,000 per yearEligibilityNational Merit Finalist who designates UO as first-choice institution with the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Available to both residents and non-residents.

Source

AmountResidents $1,000-$3,000/yr; Non-residents $2,000-$6,000/yrEligibilityInternational Baccalaureate diploma recipients.

Source

Amount$1,500 per yearEligibilityBoth residents and non-residents; auto-considered. Small but stackable with Summit and other UO awards.

Source

Oregon merit aid FAQ

  • How much merit aid does the University of Oregon give?

    UO publishes parallel resident and non-resident automatic merit ladders. Non-residents: UO Excellence $20,000/yr (highly selective), Summit $12,500/yr (3.90+ HS GPA), Apex $10,000/yr. Oregon residents: Staton $6,000/yr, Summit $5,000/yr (3.90+ HS GPA), Apex $2,000/yr, plus full-tuition PathwayOregon for Pell-eligible residents. Separate-application awards include the Stamps Scholarship (UO's most generous), Presidential ($9,000), Duck Excellence ($7,500), and Home Flight.

  • Can I stack the Summit and Apex Scholarships?

    No. Summit explicitly cannot be combined with the Apex Scholarship or UO Excellence Scholarship — students receive the largest of the three. Summit DOES combine with Presidential, Duck Excellence, and General University Scholarships, so a top resident applicant can layer Summit ($5,000) + Presidential ($9,000) + Duck Excellence ($7,500) = $21,500 per year on top of departmental and outside awards.

  • Do outside scholarships reduce my UO Apex Scholarship?

    No. UO's Apex Scholarship FAQ states explicitly: 'Receipt of scholarships from organizations and agencies other than the University of Oregon will not affect your Apex Scholarship.' This is unusually stacker-friendly for a public flagship. Verify in writing whether the same rule applies to your specific award (Summit, UO Excellence, etc.) before assuming.

  • What happens to my UO scholarship if I gain Oregon residency later?

    Non-resident scholarships (Summit $12,500, UO Excellence $20,000, Apex $10,000) reduce to the corresponding Oregon-resident amount effective the term you gain in-state status. UO lists residency change examples explicitly: formal residency, Tuition Equity, staff/family tuition benefits, or VA in-state assessment. The total cost-of-attendance math may still favor changing status, but model it before initiating.

  • When should I apply for UO scholarships?

    The Stamps Scholarship deadline is November 12 — earliest and most consequential. Apply for admission by January 15 to be considered for automatic awards. Submit remaining admission materials by February 15. Presidential and Duck Excellence separate applications are due February 2. Final scholarship letters are sent by April 1.

See sources and other schools

How Oregon compares

  • 14 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use no-displacement displacement.

    Oregon is in the small minority (14 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.

    Oregon 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 Oregon’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Compare with similar schools

Keep exploring Oregon merit aid