Utica University · New York

Utica University scholarships and merit aid

Transfer students and high-achieving learners find substantial merit-based support at Utica.

Verified Jul 20262 months ago

The short answer

Is Utica University worth a closer look?

Utica University may be worth checking, but its awards do not follow a simple grades-and-scores chart. Start with the published scholarships below.

Merit tiers8See who qualifies

First-year students with school awards17%First-year students, CDS 2022-2023 (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.

Amount not published

Utica University Achievement Awards

Apply separatelyCan continue

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Amount not published

Transfer Achievement Awards

Apply separately

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Amount not published

Founders Scholarship

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Amount not published

Utica University Presidents Scholarship

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Amount not published

Leadership Scholarship

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Amount not published

Affordability Grant

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Amount not published

Associates Achievement Awards

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Amount not published

Transfer Leadership Awards

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See what could change an award

Straight from the aid office

What Utica University's aid office says

Per the Financial Aid Office, Utica University, August 2026. How we verify

Basis for merit awards for incoming students

How are merit awards for incoming students determined?

Merit awards for incoming students are based on their admission application.

“Merit awards for incoming students are based off their admission application.”

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

If you're a transfer student or community college graduate with a strong record of achievement and leadership, Utica's merit awards are worth a close look.

Published yearly cost: Approximately $27,380 for 2026-2027. Source

Cost and graduation facts

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

Average annual net price by family income at Utica University, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$13,290
$30,001–$48,000	$14,518
$48,001–$75,000	$16,439
$75,001–$110,000	$20,217
$110,001+	$26,685
All income levels (average)	$19,108

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $26,930
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $19,108

That works out to roughly a 49% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $37,205 (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: 56%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 71%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $22,500 (~$239/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $63,277
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 50%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 73%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not Utica University'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 Utica University'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

Outside scholarships, grants, and tuition waivers must be accounted for in the aid package. In most cases, when adjustments are necessary, Utica replaces loans and/or federal work-study before replacing any grants or scholarships from Utica University.

Source

More school data

From the Utica University Common Data Set 2022-2023 (school-estimated figures):

Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From Utica University’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.

17%of admitsget merit

Average award$6,562Covers ~24% of $27,380 cost of attendance

At Utica University, roughly 1 in 6 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $6,562 — about 24% of total cost.

As filed in Utica University's CDS Section H2A: of 429 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 74 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $6,562. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 297 of 2,140, averaging $6,410. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.

The 2022-2023 column is marked "estimated" in the school's own CDS filing — school-projected figures, not final audited counts.

Receive institutional merit17%First-year students, Common Data Set 2022-2023 (school-estimated)

Average merit award$6,562Across recipients, Common Data Set 2022-2023 (school-estimated)

Source: Common Data Set 2022-2023 (verified 2026-07-23)

Other Utica University scholarships worth checking

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

Phi Theta Kappa Award

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityPhi Theta Kappa Award awards are based on induction into the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society; to remain in the program and keep the scholarship, the student must maintain a 3.2 cumulative GPA and full time status.

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Award

AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityHonors Award is an Honors Program Scholarship awarded based on highest academic achievement; to remain in the program and keep the scholarship, the student must maintain a 3.2 cumulative GPA for the duration of the Honors Program.

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See sources and other schools

How Utica University compares

145 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use loan-first displacement.
Utica University is in a recognizable cluster (145 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Utica University 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 Utica University’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Policy pageUtica University stacking policy
Cost of attendanceUtica University cost-of-attendance worksheet
Merit tiersUtica University Achievement Awards

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Keep exploring Utica University merit aid

Utica University scholarship stacking. Whether outside awards land as upside or quietly displace institutional aid.
Does Utica University displace outside scholarships?. The dollar math on a $5,000 outside award, plus peer schools that handle it differently.