$5,000
Art Scholarship
Apply separately
See who qualifies
Notes
Official Puget Sound snapshot states Art Scholarships are $5,000 per year, for students planning visual arts or art history, with Jan. 15 application deadline.
University of Puget Sound · Washington
Puget Sound scholarships and merit aid
Puget Sound centers merit on a stacked Academic Scholarship suite plus named awards (Matelich, Lillis), talent scholarships in art and forensics, and National Merit and Posse recognition.
Verified Jul 20262 months ago
The short answer
Is Puget Sound worth a closer look?
Puget Sound is worth checking if your student has strong grades or scores. We found 8 published awards, and one is based on those numbers.
Merit tiers81 based on grades or scores
First-year students with school awards36%First-year students, CDS 2024-2025 (school-estimated)
Research checkedJul 2026By our research team
Free Merit Check
See what Puget Sound'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.
Full cost of attendance
Lillis Foundation Scholarship
Apply separately
See who qualifies
Notes
Official Lillis Scholarship snapshot supports coverage of tuition, standard double room, and standard medium meal plan for up to four years; says two scholarships are awarded and completed admission plus scholarship applications are due December 1.
$1,000+
Forensics Scholarship
Apply separately
See who qualifies
Notes
Official Puget Sound snapshot states Forensics Scholarships are $1,000-$3,000 per year, recipients compete in intercollegiate speech and debate, and deadline is Jan. 15.
$1,000+
National Merit Scholarship
Apply separately
See who qualifies
Notes
Official Puget Sound snapshot states incoming first-year National Merit Finalists listing Puget Sound first-choice with NMSC by May 31 are eligible for $1,000-$2,000 depending on financial need, in addition to other academic scholarships.
Full tuition
Posse Foundation Scholarship
Apply separately
See who qualifies
Notes
Official Puget Sound snapshot states partnership with Posse Foundation, 10 San Francisco Bay Area public high school students selected each year for full-tuition scholarships regardless of financial need, with process coordinated by Posse.
Up to $45,000
Academic Scholarship Suite
Based on grades or scores
See who qualifies
Notes
Official Puget Sound scholarship snapshot supports automatic consideration for incoming undergraduates, academic application basis, no separate application, up to $45,000/year, and constant annual amounts if eligibility is met; scholarship list includes the named academic tiers.
$2,000
All Washington Academic Team Scholarship
Apply separately
See who qualifies
Notes
Official Puget Sound snapshot states AWAT recognizes Washington community college academic achievers and Puget Sound offers up to three $2,000 scholarships, in addition to other academic scholarships.
Full cost of attendance
Matelich Scholarship
Apply separately
See who qualifies
Notes
Official Matelich Scholarship snapshot supports 100% of tuition and fees (standard double room, standard medium meal plan, and student government fee) for up to four years; says two awards and completed admission plus scholarship application due Dec. 1.
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 Puget Sound's published information.
- Aid capHard $90,766 cost-of-attendance ceiling
Institutional aid at Puget Sound cannot push the package past $90,766. Big outside wins can mathematically reduce institutional grant once the ceiling is reached.
Straight from the aid office
What Puget Sound's aid office says
Per Student Financial Services, University of Puget Sound, August 2026. How we verify
- Ten semesters, not eight
How long is the merit scholarship renewable?
Up to ten semesters on satisfactory academic progress — two more than the eight-semester ceiling most schools set. That is real headroom for a double major, a co-op term, or a changed major that adds a semester.
“These are renewable for up to 10 (ten) semesters as long as the student maintains satisfactory academic progress”
- Falling behind
What happens if the GPA or completion ratio slips?
A warning term, not an immediate loss. The student is placed on financial aid warning and stays eligible for aid through it, provided the standards are met by the end of that warning semester.
“If the cumulative GPA or completion ratio falls below the requirement, the student will be placed on a financial aid warning. Students on a warning are still eligible for financial aid as long as they meet the standards by the end of the warning semester.”
- Talent awards stack — but
If a student also earns an art or music award, does it stack with merit?
Yes on the merit side, with a catch on the need side: talent scholarships typically stack on top of the merit scholarship, but the office noted both can reduce need-based financial aid. Stacking against institutional merit and displacing need-based aid are separate questions, and here the answer differs by which one is asked.
“Talent scholarships, such as art or music, are typically stacked on top of merit scholarships. Both of these scholarships could potentially reduce need-based financial aid.”
- Outside scholarships
When an outside scholarship arrives, what is reduced first?
Loans, and only at the ceiling. The office was precise: loans are reduced first, but only if the new scholarship pushes total aid past cost of attendance. Below that line an outside award lowers the family bill rather than replacing anything.
“When an outside scholarship comes in, we would reduce loans first, only if receipt of the scholarship results in more aid than the cost of attendance.”
See costs and school data
Who this school may work for
Strong applicants to this private Pacific-Northwest liberal-arts college, talent candidates in art or forensics, and students who can combine academic and named awards.
Published yearly cost: Approximately $90,766 for 2026-2027. Source
Cost and graduation facts
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Puget Sound, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
| Family income | Average net price paid |
|---|---|
| $0–$30,000 | $23,643 |
| $30,001–$48,000 | $23,133 |
| $48,001–$75,000 | $31,649 |
| $75,001–$110,000 | $34,870 |
| $110,001+ | $45,456 |
| All income levels (average) | $38,394 |
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
- Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23
- $62,898
- Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
- $38,394
That works out to roughly a 51% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $78,378 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
Outcomes for students who enrolled here
- Graduation rate (150% of normal time), 2016 cohort
- 68%
- First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
- 84%
- Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
- $25,000 (~$265/mo on a 10-yr plan)
- Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
- $69,594
- Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
- 14%
- Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
- 42%
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): Outside scholarships will be applied to any remaining unmet financial need. If your need has already been met with other federal, state, or Puget Sound need-based aid, additional scholarships will result in your need-based aid being reduced. Reductions occur in the following order: work study, loan assistance, and finally Puget Sound grant assistance. Puget Sound grant programs are need-based awards and will be reduced in a financial aid package if the total amount of all scholarships combined with the grant assistance exceeds financial need.
More school data
From the Puget Sound Common Data Set 2024-2025 (school-estimated figures):
36%of admitsget merit
Average award$30,447Covers ~34% of $90,766 cost of attendance
At Puget Sound, roughly 1 in 3 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $30,447 — about 34% of total cost.
As filed in Puget Sound's CDS Section H2A: of 430 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 153 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $30,447. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 708 of 1,575, averaging $28,971. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
The 2024-2025 column is marked "estimated" in the school's own CDS filing — school-projected figures, not final audited counts.
Receive institutional merit36%First-year students, Common Data Set 2024-2025 (school-estimated)
Average merit award$30,447Across recipients, Common Data Set 2024-2025 (school-estimated)
Puget Sound merit aid FAQ
What is the deadline for Deadline Academic Scholarship Automatic?
No separate application is required for academic merit scholarships. All incoming undergraduates are considered automatically at the point of admission.
What is the deadline for Deadline Talent Scholarships Jan15?
Applications for Art, Forensics, and Theatre talent scholarships are due January 15.
See sources and other schools
How Puget Sound compares
- 235 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use cost-of-attendance cap displacement.
Puget Sound is in a recognizable cluster (235 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
- 132 of 749 verified schools publish a dedicated National Merit Finalist package.
Puget Sound 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 Puget Sound’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
- Policy pagePuget Sound stacking policy
- Cost of attendancePuget Sound cost-of-attendance worksheet
- Merit tiersArt Scholarship
- Merit tiersLillis Foundation Scholarship
- Merit tiersMatelich Scholarship
Compare with similar schools
- Whitman College merit aid. Washington private school — compare automatic merit, amounts, and stacking.
- Whitworth merit aid. Washington private school — compare automatic merit, amounts, and stacking.
- CWU merit aid. Washington public university — compare automatic merit, amounts, and stacking.
- EWU merit aid. Washington public university — compare automatic merit, amounts, and stacking.
Keep exploring Puget Sound merit aid
- Puget Sound scholarship stacking. Whether outside awards land as upside or quietly displace institutional aid.
- Does Puget Sound displace outside scholarships?. The dollar math on a $5,000 outside award, plus peer schools that handle it differently.