University of South Carolina Upstate · South Carolina

USC Upstate scholarships and merit aid

Multiple scholarship tiers reward strong academics from day one.

Verified Jun 20263 months ago

The short answer

Is USC Upstate worth a closer look?

USC Upstate 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

Research checkedJun 2026By our research team

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Checking merit aid at USC Upstate

Unweighted GPA

Test score

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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–$10,000

Valedictorian Scholars

Apply separatelyCan continue

SAT: 1000
ACT: 21

See who qualifies and how to keep it

How to keep it

Maintain 3 GPA

Source

Amount not published

University Of South Carolina Alumni Scholarship

Apply separatelyCan continue

Source

$3,000

Provost Scholars

Apply separately

GPA: 3.5
SAT: 1200
ACT: 25

Source

$2,000

Dean Scholars

Apply separately

SAT: 1100
ACT: 22

Source

$5,000–$10,000

Chancellor Scholars

Apply separatelyCan continue

GPA: 3.75
SAT: 1300
ACT: 27

See who qualifies and how to keep it

How to keep it

Maintain 3 GPA

Source

$1,000–$2,000

Transfer Scholars

Apply separatelyCan continue

GPA: 3

See who qualifies and how to keep it

How to keep it

Maintain 3 GPA

Source

Amount not published

Usc Faculty Staff Dependents Scholarship

Apply separatelyCan continue

GPA: 3

See who qualifies and how to keep it

How to keep it

Maintain 3 GPA

Source

$500–$10,000

Out Of State Scholarships

Based on grades or scores

GPA: 3
SAT: 1000

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 USC Upstate's published information.

Outside awardsNo published displacement order
USC Upstate's policy doesn't specify whether outside scholarships hit loans, grants, or only the COA ceiling. Get a written aid-office answer before chasing private awards.

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

Incoming students with solid GPAs and transfer students will find the most opportunities here, especially those planning to study abroad.

Published yearly cost: Approximately $30,127 for 2026-2027. Source

Cost and graduation facts

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

Average annual net price by family income at USC Upstate, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$11,618
$30,001–$48,000	$11,537
$48,001–$75,000	$13,394
$75,001–$110,000	$17,356
$110,001+	$19,325
All income levels (average)	$13,557

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23: $11,588
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23: $23,090
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $13,557

That works out to roughly a 46% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $25,124 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).

USC Upstate 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: 43%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 70%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $22,310 (~$237/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $48,587
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 59%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 56%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not USC Upstate's full student body.
Published tuition is the catalog sticker price for all students, not a Title IV-only figure.
Graduation rate reflects the entire first-time, full-time, degree-seeking cohort — not only students who received Title IV aid.
Retention rate reflects all first-time, full-time, bachelor's-seeking students — not only Title IV aid recipients.
Median debt reflects only completers who took out federal student loans — not USC Upstate's full graduating class, and not limited to first-time, full-time students.
Median earnings reflect Title IV aid recipients who entered college and were working (not enrolled) roughly a decade later — not necessarily the graduating cohort, and not a recent graduate's paycheck.
Pell grant and federal loan participation covers first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students only.
Net price blends need-based aid and merit aid together — it is not a merit-specific estimate. It shows what similar-income families actually paid on average after every kind of aid, not what a strong-stats student could win in merit dollars alone. Treat it as cost context, not a merit forecast — a MeritPlaybook models merit aid specifically for your student’s own stats, which this net-price figure cannot do.

None of this is current-year data — the U.S. Department of Education reports it on a delay, and different figures below come from different reporting years. Net price is an academic year 2021-22 figure. Published tuition reflects the 2022-23 academic year. Graduation rate reflects the Fall 2016 entering, full-time, first-time, degree/certificate-seeking cohort; completion measured within 150% of normal time (~6 years for a bachelor's degree). IPEDS Graduation Rates component (C150_4). Retention reflects the Fall 2021 full-time, first-time, bachelor's-seeking cohort retained into the following fall. IPEDS Fall Enrollment component (RET_FT4). Median debt reflects the NSLDS FY2020 and FY2021 pooled completer cohorts (GRAD_DEBT_MDN, GRAD_DEBT_MDN10YR_SUPP). Median earnings reflect the Treasury-matched cohort entering college in AY2009-10 or AY2010-11, earnings measured 10 years later in calendar years 2020 and 2021, inflation-adjusted to 2022 dollars (MD_EARN_WNE_P10).

Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard.

See other scholarships and cost examples

If your student brings another scholarship

Students receiving other general USC Upstate scholarships may also receive a Merit Scholarship, but the total general USC Upstate scholarship package may not exceed the resident, on-campus cost-of-attendance figure.

Source

Other USC Upstate scholarships worth checking

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

Travel Abroad Scholarship

Amount$1,000EligibilityA student who successfully completes all requirements of the Honors Program receives a $1,000 travel abroad scholarship.

Source

See sources and other schools

How USC Upstate compares

133 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use unclear or unpublished displacement.
USC Upstate is in a recognizable cluster (133 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
133 of 749 verified schools publish no clear displacement order.
USC Upstate is one of them. The right move is the aid-office email script below, not a guess.
665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
USC Upstate 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 USC Upstate’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Policy pageUSC Upstate stacking policy
Cost of attendanceUSC Upstate cost-of-attendance worksheet
Scholarship pageTravel Abroad Scholarship

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Keep exploring USC Upstate merit aid

USC Upstate scholarship stacking. Whether outside awards land as upside or quietly displace institutional aid.
Does USC Upstate displace outside scholarships?. The dollar math on a $5,000 outside award, plus peer schools that handle it differently.
USC Upstate four-year renewal rules. GPA floors, credit-hour pace, and the renewal cliffs that knock awards out by sophomore year.