Utah's flagship public with a fully published five-tier automatic merit ladder driven by unweighted high school GPA — $3,000 at 3.50 stepping up to $10,000 at a 4.00, all renewable four years and gated by a December 1 admission deadline.
Verified Jul 20262 months ago· CC-1
The short answer
Is Utah worth a closer look?
Utah is worth checking if your student has strong grades or scores. We found 6 published awards, and 6 are based on those numbers.
Merit tiers66 based on grades or scores
First-year students with school awards20%First-year students, CDS 2024-2025 (school-estimated)
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.
$10,000 per year
President John R. Park Scholarship
Based on grades or scoresCan continue
GPA
4.00 unweighted
See who qualifies and how to keep it+
Who qualifies
Automatic with admission for freshmen who apply by December 1.
How to keep it
Renewable for up to four years provided the student meets the published terms and conditions.
Notes
Utah's top automatic award; requires perfect unweighted GPA. The only tier in the ladder open exclusively to 4.0 students.
Automatic; available to Utah residents and non-residents NOT from WUE-eligible states.
How to keep it
Renewable for up to four years.
Notes
WUE-state students should compare this $4K award against the WUE tuition rate — Utah explicitly excludes WUE-eligible students from this tier to avoid double-discounting.
Utah is explicit: the admission application must be in by December 1 for merit-scholarship consideration. Late applicants — even those with 4.0 GPAs — fall out of the automatic ladder and into a much more limited general scholarship pool.
Utah's tier ladder explicitly uses 'unweighted high school GPA' at time of application. Students with strong weighted GPAs from rigorous coursework who have unweighted GPAs below 3.80 will land in the $4K Red Rock tier, not the $6K Bonneville tier.
Utah explicitly excludes WUE-eligible students from the Red Rock tier. WUE-state families need to compare the WUE tuition discount against the Red Rock dollar amount, not assume they get both.
See costs and school data+
Who this school may work for
GPA-strong students inside and outside Utah who want predictable, transparent automatic merit at a flagship-tier public — particularly families in WUE states who can pair the lower WUE tuition rate with Utah's merit ladder.
Cost of attendance$40,846–$62,590 for 2025-26Each bar is the full published cost for that scenario, sized against the highest figure so totals compare at a glance.
Out-of-state, on-campus$62,590
$32K
$17K
$9.6K
In-state, on-campus$40,846
$10K
$17K
$9.6K
Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Books
Personal
Travel
University of Utah, undergraduate living on-campus. Total of direct and indirect costs.
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Utah, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at Utah, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$13,123
$30,001–$48,000
$13,424
$48,001–$75,000
$14,246
$75,001–$110,000
$17,663
$110,001+
$21,533
All income levels (average)
$16,200
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23
$9,620
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23
$30,860
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$16,200
That works out to roughly a 37% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $25,557 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
Utah 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
65%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
86%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$19,000 (~$201/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$67,170
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
18%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
20%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
More school data
From the Utah Common Data Set 2024-2025 (school-estimated figures):
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From Utah’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$7,830Covers ~13% of $62,590 cost of attendance
At Utah, roughly 1 in 5 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $7,830 — about 13% of total cost.
As filed in Utah's CDS Section H2A: of 5,858 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 1,168 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $7,830. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 5,393 of 23,669, averaging $7,377. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
The 2024-2025 column is marked "estimated" in the school's own CDS filing — school-projected figures, not final audited counts.
Yes for the five-tier merit ladder (Park, Provost, Bonneville, Red Rock, Great Salt Lake) and the WUE tuition rate — all are automatic with admission. Sterling Scholars tuition waiver and Alumni Legacy are layered awards with separate eligibility paths.
Does Utah use weighted or unweighted GPA for scholarships?
Unweighted. Utah's scholarship page specifies the award is based on 'unweighted high school GPA' at time of application submission. AP and honors courses don't bump your tier — only the raw GPA does.
When is the deadline for University of Utah merit scholarships?
December 1. Utah states: 'The admissions application deadline for merit scholarship consideration is December 1 each year.' Applications submitted after that date are not eligible for the automatic merit ladder.
Are Utah's merit scholarships renewable for all four years?
Yes. The published scholarship page describes each tier as 'renewable for up to four (4) years, provided the student meets the terms and conditions.' Specific renewal GPA thresholds are communicated in the award letter.
Can a WUE-state student get both the WUE tuition rate and the Red Rock Scholarship?
No. Utah explicitly designs the Red Rock Scholarship for 'Utah residents and non-residents not from WUE-eligible states.' WUE-state students receive the WUE tuition discount instead of Red Rock — never both.
See sources and other schools+
How Utah compares
667 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Utah 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.
Sources used on this page
Every claim is checked against Utah’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
