University of San Diego · California
Independent Catholic university near the coast in San Diego with a strong Catholic-student aid hook, but no public stat-to-dollar merit table and an outside-scholarship policy housed in a JavaScript-only knowledge-base article rather than on a crawlable page.
The short answer
USD may be worth checking, but its awards do not follow a simple grades-and-scores chart. Start with the published scholarships below.
Free Merit Check
These amounts and requirements come from the school’s own published pages. Open an award to see who qualifies and how to keep it.
Incoming Catholic students. Confirm eligibility and renewal terms with the Office of Financial Aid before relying on this award in your budget.
Renewable for incoming Catholic students; specific renewal terms not published on the main aid pages
The only named undergraduate merit award USD publishes a dollar amount for on a publicly crawlable page.
USD publishes very little public, stat-driven merit aid data. The main scholarships landing page lists primarily law and graduate awards. The only named undergraduate merit dollar amount visible on a crawlable page is the $5,000 University Ministry Scholarship for Catholic students. Families should use USD's Net Price Calculator and the actual offer letter as the only reliable cost anchors, and should not rely on forum-sourced 'Presidential Scholarship = $X' rumors.
USD's first-year FAFSA priority deadline for the 2026-27 aid year is February 1, 2026. Filing after that date pushes the application into a smaller funded pool. California residents must also meet the state's March 2 Cal Grant verification deadline. USD's federal school code is 010395.
USD's outside scholarship policy is housed in a Salesforce-based knowledge-base article (usdkb.sandiego.edu) rather than on the main aid site, and is not retrievable via standard search tools. Families winning outside scholarships should ask the Office of Financial Aid in writing: 'When I report this outside scholarship, what is reduced first — work-study, federal loans, the USD Grant, or unmet need?' Get the answer before committing.
USD (University of San Diego) is a private Catholic institution. UC San Diego (UCSD) is a public University of California campus with very different aid, admissions, and cost structures. They are not interchangeable for cost modeling, application strategy, or scholarship research.
Catholic students looking for a mid-size Pacific Coast university and willing to model a wide net-cost range until the actual offer letter arrives; transparency-sensitive families should probably anchor their list elsewhere.
Billed per-semester table x2: Tuition $32,050 + Fees $549.50 + Health Insurance $1,999 + Housing $6,725 + Meal $2,875 = $44,198.50/sem. Health insurance is the standard plan included in the published total.
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at USD, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
| Family income | Average net price paid |
|---|---|
| $0–$30,000 | $15,586 |
| $30,001–$48,000 | $17,441 |
| $48,001–$75,000 | $19,557 |
| $75,001–$110,000 | $27,012 |
| $110,001+ | $46,989 |
| All income levels (average) | $30,365 |
That works out to roughly a 61% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $78,720 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
From the USD Common Data Set 2024-2025:
At USD, roughly 1 in 5 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $23,136 — about 26% of total cost.
As filed in USD's CDS Section H2A: of 1,102 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 221 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $23,136. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 1,244 of 5,584, averaging $19,789. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.
Largely no. USD's public scholarships page is dominated by law and graduate awards. The $5,000 University Ministry Scholarship for Catholic students is the only named undergraduate merit award with a visible dollar amount on a publicly crawlable USD page. The Net Price Calculator is the primary public tool for cost estimation.
For 2026-27 entry, the FAFSA priority deadline for first-year applicants is February 1, 2026. USD's federal school code is 010395. California residents must also submit the Cal Grant GPA Verification by California's March 2, 2026 deadline.
USD's published applying-for-aid guide does not list a CSS Profile requirement. Only the FAFSA, California Dream Act Application (for AB540-eligible students), or the USD Dream Act (for undocumented students from non-California states) is referenced for institutional aid consideration.
USD's published guidance instructs students to 'notify the Office of Financial Aid as soon as possible' if they receive outside or private scholarships. The detailed displacement policy is published in USD's knowledge-base article 'Private Source Financial Aid Award' rather than on the main financial aid site. Families should request the displacement order in writing before assuming the outside award is fully additive.
USD 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.
Every claim is checked against USD’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
