A private research university whose top merit awards are unusually deep — a full-tuition Presidential Scholarship and a full-tuition-plus-housing National Merit package — but whose general freshman merit is awarded holistically with no published GPA/test-banded dollar grid.
Verified Jul 20262 months ago
The short answer
Is Tulsa worth a closer look?
Tulsa may be worth checking, but its awards do not follow a simple grades-and-scores chart. Start with the published scholarships below.
Merit tiers2See who qualifies
Research checkedJul 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 (excluding summers)
Presidential Scholarship
Apply separatelyCan continue
SAT
1300
ACT
28
See who qualifies and how to keep it+
Who qualifies
Superscore floor of ACT 28 or SAT 1300 to be considered. Competitive, not automatic: requires a separate Presidential Scholarship Application with resume and short answers, plus a required campus visit, all due by February 1. Also weighs a rigorous curriculum, genuine interest in UTulsa, and co-curricular involvement.
How to keep it
Covers full tuition for five years or until an undergraduate degree is earned. Recipients must maintain a minimum of 15 credit hours of coursework per semester. Does not cover room and board.
Full tuition…Full tuition (excluding summers) for four years + Tier I housing
National Merit Semifinalist Package
Apply separatelyCan continue
See who qualifies+
Who qualifies
Must be a National Merit Semifinalist and list The University of Tulsa with NMSC. The package replaces, rather than stacks with, other UTulsa scholarships.
How to keep it
Full tuition for four years plus Tier I housing (upgrades at the student's expense). National Merit Finalists may also receive a minimum $750 scholarship from the National Merit organization if eligible. Cannot be combined with other UTulsa funding or scholarships. Students must maintain a minimum of 12 credit hours per semester.
These are the rules we would flag for your family. Each comes from Tulsa's published information.
Outside awardsNo published displacement order
Tulsa'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.
What families often miss
The test-score floor is only the threshold to be considered. The Presidential Scholarship is competitive and application-gated: you must submit a separate scholarship application with a resume and short answers, and complete a required campus visit, all by February 1. Clearing the score minimum does not guarantee the award.
The National Merit Semifinalist Package 'cannot be combined with other UTulsa funding or scholarships.' It replaces other institutional awards rather than adding to them, so a National Merit student should compare the package against the best alternative single award, not assume they sum.
The Presidential Scholarship covers tuition only and explicitly does not cover room and board; the National Merit package adds Tier I housing but not meals or other costs. Families still need to budget for housing, food, and fees on top of a full-tuition award.
See award cutoffs and special programs+
Presidential Scholarship — full tuition, but competitive and application-gated
The Presidential Scholarship is Tulsa's flagship merit award: it 'covers full tuition (excluding summers) for five years or until an undergraduate degree is earned.' Unlike the fully automatic merit ladders at many peer privates, this one is competitive and gated. To be considered, an applicant must have a superscore of 28 or higher on the ACT or 1300 or higher on the SAT, and must submit a separate Presidential Scholarship Application with a resume and short answers, a complete admission application, official transcript, and test scores by February 1 — plus complete a required campus visit through an official Office of Admission program. The award does not cover room and board, and recipients must maintain 15 credit hours per semester. Tulsa's published page also references a strong academic profile (top GPA) beyond the test-score floor, so the 28 ACT / 1300 SAT cutoff is a minimum to compete, not a guarantee.
High-stat students (ACT 28+/SAT 1300+, near-4.0 GPA) willing to complete a competitive application and campus visit for the full-tuition Presidential Scholarship, and National Merit Semifinalists who can capture the full-tuition-plus-Tier-I-housing package. Less predictable for mid-range students because Tulsa does not publish a stat-to-dollar merit table.
Cost of attendance$69,266 for 2025-2026Each bar is the full published cost for that scenario, sized against the highest figure so totals compare at a glance.
On-campus$69,266
$53K
$17K
Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Official University of Tulsa undergraduate COA page; billed total $69,266. Tuition & fees = tuition $50,760 + student services fee $540 + university fee $1,266. Housing & food = room and board $16,700. Billed-only breakdown.
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Tulsa, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at Tulsa, academic year 2021-22
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$5,578
$30,001–$48,000
$8,616
$48,001–$75,000
$10,871
$75,001–$110,000
$18,579
$110,001+
$25,473
All income levels (average)
$15,000
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23
$50,061
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$15,000
That works out to roughly a 77% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $64,459 (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
72%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
92%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$21,500 (~$228/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$61,408
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
24%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
25%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
Tulsa's headline National Merit package explicitly cannot be combined with other UTulsa scholarships — it replaces them. For general outside/private scholarships, Tulsa does not publish a displacement formula on the pages reviewed, so families should confirm with the Office of Admission/Financial Aid before assuming an outside award adds to an institutional one.
For the National Merit Semifinalist Package, Tulsa states it 'cannot be combined with other UTulsa funding or scholarships,' so NM recipients receive that package instead of (not in addition to) other institutional merit. Outside of that specific award, Tulsa's public scholarship pages do not publish a general displacement rule for third-party/private scholarships, so the institutional-aid effect of an outside scholarship is not determinable from the public site and should be confirmed with the aid office.
These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.
Amount$20,000 ($5,000 per year for four years)EligibilityFinance majors who maintain a 3.2 GPA, attend five of seven luncheons, and engage with a matched mentor.
Amount$4,000/yr for music majors; $2,000/yr for non-major ensemble performers; a limited number of full-tuition awards for music majorsEligibilityRequires a School of Music audition by March 10. Open to music majors and to non-majors who perform in ensembles.
Amount$3,000 per yearEligibilityStudents who complete the full IB diploma with a minimum 3.0 high school GPA. Renewable for eight semesters or until the first degree.
Does Tulsa publish a GPA/test-score scholarship table for freshmen?
No. Tulsa states that 'all degree-seeking applicants are automatically and holistically considered for merit scholarships when they apply for admission,' but it does not publish a stat-banded dollar grid the way many peer privates do. The named awards with fixed amounts are the Presidential, National Merit, and specialty (music, IB, finance) scholarships.
What does the Presidential Scholarship cover and how do I get it?
It 'covers full tuition (excluding summers) for five years or until an undergraduate degree is earned.' It is competitive: you need an ACT superscore of 28+ or SAT 1300+, and you must submit a separate Presidential Scholarship Application with a resume and short answers plus complete a required campus visit, all by February 1. It does not cover room and board, and you must carry 15 credit hours per semester.
What do National Merit Semifinalists get at Tulsa?
Full tuition (excluding summers) for four years plus Tier I housing, with upgrades at the student's expense. Finalists may also receive a minimum $750 award from the National Merit organization. The package cannot be combined with other UTulsa scholarships and requires a 12-credit-hour minimum each semester.
Can I combine my Tulsa merit scholarship with an outside scholarship?
It depends on the award. The National Merit package explicitly cannot be combined with other UTulsa funding. For general outside/private scholarships, Tulsa's public pages do not publish a displacement rule, so confirm with the Office of Admission or Financial Aid how an outside award affects your institutional aid before counting on it.
See sources and other schools+
How Tulsa compares
133 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use unclear or unpublished displacement.
Tulsa 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.
Tulsa 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.
Tulsa 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 Tulsa’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
