Skip to content

Utah scholarships and merit aid

Two prices: the posted one, and yours.

Posted price$40,846per year · 2025-26 · ResidentNon-resident $62,590
Yours?depends on the rules below

The short answer

Utah is worth checking if your student has strong grades or scores. We found 6 published awards, and 6 are based on those numbers.

Where does your student land?

Verified Jul 2026
3 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. President John R. Park Scholarship$10,000 per yearAutomaticRenewable
    Published awardAcademic thresholds

    President John R. Park Scholarship

    $10,000 per year

    Published amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.

    GPA
    4.00 unweighted
    RenewableCheck the conditions
    Open award details for President John R. Park Scholarship

    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.

    Worth knowing

    Utah's top automatic award; requires perfect unweighted GPA. The only tier in the ladder open exclusively to 4.0 students.

  2. Provost's Scholarship$8,000 per yearAutomaticRenewable
    Published awardAcademic thresholds

    Provost's Scholarship

    $8,000 per year

    Published amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.

    GPA
    3.90 unweighted
    RenewableCheck the conditions
    Open award details for Provost's Scholarship

    Who qualifies

    Automatic for freshmen entering summer or fall who apply by December 1.

    How to keep it

    Renewable for up to four years with continued eligibility.

  3. Bonneville Scholarship$6,000 per yearAutomaticRenewable
    Published awardAcademic thresholds

    Bonneville Scholarship

    $6,000 per year

    Published amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.

    GPA
    3.80 unweighted
    RenewableCheck the conditions
    Open award details for Bonneville Scholarship

    Who qualifies

    Automatic; based on unweighted high school GPA at time of application submission.

    How to keep it

    Renewable for up to four years.

  4. Red Rock Scholarship$4,000 per yearAutomaticRenewable
    Published awardAcademic thresholds

    Red Rock Scholarship

    $4,000 per year

    Published amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.

    GPA
    3.70 unweighted
    RenewableCheck the conditions
    Open award details for Red Rock Scholarship

    Who qualifies

    Automatic; available to Utah residents and non-residents NOT from WUE-eligible states.

    How to keep it

    Renewable for up to four years.

    Worth knowing

    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.

  5. Great Salt Lake Scholarship$3,000 per yearAutomaticRenewable
    Published awardAcademic thresholds

    Great Salt Lake Scholarship

    $3,000 per year

    Published amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.

    GPA
    3.50 unweighted
    RenewableCheck the conditions
    Open award details for Great Salt Lake Scholarship

    Who qualifies

    Must submit application for admission to the U by December 1.

    How to keep it

    Renewable for up to four years.

  6. Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) Tuition RateReduced non-resident tuition rate (set annually by WUE compact)AutomaticRenewable
    Published awardAcademic thresholds

    Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) Tuition Rate

    Reduced non-resident tuition rate (set annually by WUE compact)

    Published coverage or packageAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.

    GPA
    3.30+ unweighted
    RenewableCheck the conditions
    Open award details for Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) Tuition Rate

    Who qualifies

    Restricted to residents of WUE-compact states. Must apply by December 1.

    How to keep it

    Renewable while WUE eligibility is maintained.

    Worth knowing

    Functionally a major non-resident discount, not a cash award. WUE-eligible students cannot also receive the Red Rock Scholarship.

Lights up against Utah's published cutoffs. Not an award offer; confirm with the financial aid office. Award terms and residency rules change; some awards differ for in-state and out-of-state students. Always confirm at the school’s source page.

Free Merit Check

Check the rules that could cut this.

The free Merit Check shows which Utah award your student's numbers reach, and the rules that could change it. About 30 seconds.

Checking merit aid at Utah

We’ll email you this result and a few short merit-aid pointers. We store score ranges only, never your student’s name. Unsubscribe anytime. See our privacy policy.

This page covers one school.

Your playbook does this for every school on your list, sorted by what you’d pay.

Ready in under 10 minutes. 30-day money-back guarantee.

  • Secure payment through Stripe
  • “it told me what to ask and what the renewal GPA looked like, which I was not going to find on my own”Melissa

What makes Utah different

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.

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

Published academic criteria

Start with the thresholds.

These awards are recorded as automatic on academic criteria. Match the published grades and scores, then check residency, entering year and every additional condition.

  1. Match the published criteria

    Use all requirements together, including residency and the entering class.

  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 Utah's decision sheet

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

See what could change an award

Straight from the aid office

What Utah's aid office says

Per the University Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid, University of Utah, August 2026. How we verify

Nature of WUE tuition rate

Is the WUE rate a scholarship, and does other aid affect it?

WUE is not a scholarship but a tuition rate, so other federal aid or scholarships on the account would not impact it.

“WUE does not act as a scholarship, but rather the rate of tuition, so any other federal aid or scholarships on the student's account would not impact WUE.”
Account-specific info requires verification

What is required before the office will discuss specific account details?

The office cannot release student information to unverified emails; a FERPA PIN and student ID, or a message from a verified Umail account, is required.

“If you would like us to look at any details regarding your account, we are unable to release any student information to unverified emails. Please reply to this email with your FERPA PIN and student ID or email us your question from your verified Umail account.”
PII submission restrictions

Can personal identifiable information be sent via email?

The University cannot accept personal identifiable information (e.g., tax documents, social security card, driver's license) via email; it must be uploaded, mailed, faxed, or brought in person.

“Please note that personal identifiable information cannot be accepted by the University of Utah via email. This would include, but​ not be limited to, any tax document, social security card, driver's license, etc.”

What families often miss

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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
In-state, on-campus$40,846
  • Tuition & fees
  • Housing & food
  • Books
  • Personal
  • Travel

University of Utah, undergraduate living on-campus. Total of direct and indirect costs.

Utah cost-of-attendance source

Cost and graduation facts

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 incomeAverage 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.

Receive institutional merit20%First-year students, Common Data Set 2024-2025 (school-estimated)
Average merit award$7,830Across recipients, Common Data Set 2024-2025 (school-estimated)

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

Other Utah scholarships worth checking

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

AmountTuition waiver (amount varies)EligibilityUtah high school Sterling Scholar award recipients.

Layered on top of the automatic merit ladder for top Utah students who hold this state-level recognition.

Source

AmountAmount not publicly publishedEligibilityNon-resident students with a parent or grandparent who graduated from the University of Utah.

Source

Utah merit aid FAQ

  • Is University of Utah merit aid automatic?

    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

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

    Utah 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 Utah’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Compare with similar schools

Keep exploring Utah merit aid

The next chapter

Where does Utah fit in your plan?

You have the school’s rules. Now put them in the context of your student and the rest of your list.

  1. Check your student’s numbers, free
  2. Explore another school
  3. See how the research becomes a plan

Ready to work through your whole list? Get my playbook

Inside the sample

Jordan’s playbook

Same student.
Four schools.
Four very different bills.

An illustrative student profile, with a school order, scholarship research and a to-do list. Open the sample to see how it works.

Open the sample playbook