Scranton automatically awards one of four named merit scholarships (Presidential full-tuition down to Faber ~$28,000), but publishes NO GPA/test cutoffs or renewal terms — and 'full-tuition' means tuition, not the ~$18K of housing and food.
Verified Jun 20263 months ago
The short answer
Is Scranton worth a closer look?
Scranton is worth checking if your student has strong grades or scores. We found 4 published awards, and 4 are based on those numbers.
Merit tiers44 based on grades or scores
First-year students with school awards21%First-year students, CDS 2024-2025
Research checkedJun 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.
Full tuition
Presidential Scholarship
Based on grades or scoresCan continue
GPA
Not published
SAT
Test optional
ACT
Test optional
See who qualifies and how to keep it+
Who qualifies
Automatic from the completed Admissions application; no separate application; recipients notified in acceptance letter
How to keep it
Renewal terms are not published; mark needs_confirmation.
Notes
Full TUITION only — not full cost of attendance; housing and food (~$17,858) are not covered.
The Presidential Scholarship covers full TUITION only. Housing and food (~$17,858 for 2025-26) are not covered, so families still owe the room-and-board portion of the cost.
Scranton publishes the award amounts (and 'average' amounts) but NOT the qualifying GPA/test thresholds or renewal terms anywhere public. You can't predict your tier from the website — ask admissions or use the net price calculator.
These are stated as 'average award' figures ($33,000 / $31,500 / $28,000) — individual offers vary around those averages.
The tuition page lists a Total Direct Cost of $73,296 (Tuition+Fees $55,438 + Housing & Food $17,858); this excludes books, transportation, and personal expenses, so the full COA is higher.
Scranton's outside-scholarship / stacking policy is not stated on the accessible undergraduate pages — confirm with the Financial Aid Office before counting on stacking an outside award on top of your merit scholarship.
See costs and school data+
Who this school may work for
Strong-stats, test-optional applicants who want a large automatic award; because the qualifying GPA/test thresholds aren't published, applicants should run the net price calculator or ask admissions to estimate which tier they'd land.
Cost and graduation facts
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Scranton, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at Scranton, academic year 2021-22
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$23,896
$30,001–$48,000
$23,407
$48,001–$75,000
$23,912
$75,001–$110,000
$29,482
$110,001+
$39,348
All income levels (average)
$32,568
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Total cost of attendance (sticker), AY 2021-22
$69,552
Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23
$53,983
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$32,568
That works out to an average 53% discount off the sticker price above — both figures come from the same federal AY 2021-22 Scorecard report, not a number the school itself published.
Outcomes for students who enrolled here
Graduation rate (150% of normal time), 2016 cohort
80%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
85%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$27,000 (~$286/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$74,652
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
27%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
65%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
More school data
From the Scranton Common Data Set 2024-2025:
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From Scranton’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
21%of admitsget merit
Average award$30,036
At Scranton, roughly 1 in 5 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $30,036.
As filed in Scranton's CDS Section H2A: of 872 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 186 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $30,036. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 780 of 3,488, averaging $26,900. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
Receive institutional merit21%First-year students, Common Data Set 2024-2025
Average merit award$30,036Across recipients, Common Data Set 2024-2025
Do I need a separate application for merit scholarships?
No. All accepted applicants are automatically evaluated for merit aid based on the completed Admissions application, and recipients are notified in their acceptance letters. Scranton is test-optional.
What does the Presidential Scholarship cover?
Full tuition. It does not cover housing and food (~$17,858 for 2025-26) or other indirect costs.
What GPA do I need, and what are the renewal requirements?
Scranton does not publish the qualifying GPA/test thresholds or the renewal terms for its merit scholarships — contact the Financial Aid Office (finaid@scranton.edu) to confirm.
See sources and other schools+
How Scranton compares
665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Scranton 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 Scranton’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
