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USD scholarships and merit aid

Two prices: the posted one, and yours.

Posted price$88,397per year · 2025-26 · On-campus
Yours?depends on the rules below

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.

Where does your student land?

Verified May 2026
2 school sources to explore

Published rules, with the school sources close at hand. Confirm the details before you count on an award.

The award collection

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.

Where does your student land?

  1. University Ministry Scholarship$5,000 annuallyNot automaticRenewable
    Published awardOther selection criteria

    University Ministry Scholarship

    $5,000 annually

    Published amountNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.

    Start with the award’s published eligibility.

    RenewableCheck the conditions
    Open award details for University Ministry Scholarship

    Who qualifies

    Incoming Catholic students. Confirm eligibility and renewal terms with the Office of Financial Aid before relying on this award in your budget.

    How to keep it

    Renewable for incoming Catholic students; specific renewal terms not published on the main aid pages

    Worth knowing

    The only named undergraduate merit award USD publishes a dollar amount for on a publicly crawlable page.

Free Merit Check

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Checking merit aid at USD

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What makes USD different

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.

Merit tiers1See who qualifies
First-year students with school awards20%First-year students, CDS 2024-2025
Research checkedMay 2026By our research team

Selection beyond grades and scores

Start with the selection process.

These awards are not recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read each award's selection rules, application steps and dates. Meeting a minimum is not an award offer.

  1. Read the selection rules

    Look for the school's stated criteria and whether an additional application is needed.

  2. Check the application dates

    Confirm the current admission and scholarship deadlines directly with the school.

  3. Know what happens next year

    Check renewal, credit requirements and how other aid affects the award.

The fine print / Three questions to carry forward

Before you count on it.

Does it apply to us? Confirm the entering year, residency and every eligibility condition.

Can we keep it? Check renewal GPA, credits and how long the award lasts.

Can we combine it? Ask how outside scholarships and other school awards change the offer.

Take USD's decision sheet

A printable research summary, source links and room for your questions.

See what could change an award

What families often miss

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

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.

Cost of attendance$88,397 for 2025-26Each bar is the full published cost for that scenario, sized against the highest figure so totals compare at a glance.
On-campus$88,397
  • Tuition & fees
  • Housing & food
  • Health insurance

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.

USD cost-of-attendance source

Cost and graduation facts

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

Average annual net price by family income at USD, academic year 2021-22
Family incomeAverage 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

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23
$59,486
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$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).

Outcomes for students who enrolled here

Graduation rate (150% of normal time), 2016 cohort
84%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
91%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$22,940 (~$243/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$86,522
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
23%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
34%
See other scholarships and cost examples

More school data

From the USD Common Data Set 2024-2025:

Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From USD’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
20%of admitsget merit
Average award$23,136Covers ~26% of $88,397 cost of attendance

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.

Receive institutional merit20%First-year students, Common Data Set 2024-2025
Average merit award$23,136Across recipients, Common Data Set 2024-2025

Source: Common Data Set 2024-2025 (verified 2026-07-23)

Other USD scholarships worth checking

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

AmountNot publicly disclosedEligibilityTalent-based; audition required. Contact the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Music.

Source

AmountTuition and fees coverage per Navy ROTC termsEligibilityNaval ROTC program affiliates; awarded by the Department of the Navy, not USD

Source

USD merit aid FAQ

  • Does USD publish merit scholarship amounts?

    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.

  • When is the financial aid deadline at USD?

    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.

  • Does USD require the CSS Profile?

    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.

  • What happens if I receive an outside scholarship?

    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.

See sources and other schools

How USD compares

  • 665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.

    USD is one of them. The cohort minority (84 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 USD’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Compare with similar schools

The next chapter

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