What is the deadline for Academic Excellence Honors Scholarship?

The deadline to receive and accept the Academic Excellence (Honors) Scholarship offer is May 1.

What is the deadline for University Scholarship?

The deadline to apply for the University Scholarship offer is May 31.

What is the deadline for Trojan Trailblazer Scholarship?

The deadline to receive and accept the Trojan Trailblazer Scholarship offer is May 1.

What is the deadline for Orange And Blue Scholarship?

The deadline to receive and accept the Orange and Blue Scholarship offer is May 1.

Virginia State University · Virginia

Virginia State scholarships and merit aid

Merit aid at Virginia State rewards academic achievement and specialized talent across multiple disciplines.

Verified Jul 20261 month ago

The short answer

Is Virginia State worth a closer look?

Virginia State 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

First-year students with school awards19%First-year students, CDS 2024-2025

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

Army Rotc Scholarship Program

Apply separately

Source

Amount not published

Athletic Scholarship

Apply separately

Source

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

High-achieving students with strong academic records or specialized skills in areas like engineering and leadership should explore these opportunities.

Published yearly cost: Approximately $23,278 for 2026-2027. Source

Cost and graduation facts

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

Average annual net price by family income at Virginia State, academic year 2021-22 — in-state, Title-IV aid recipients only
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$13,220
$30,001–$48,000	$14,758
$48,001–$75,000	$19,463
$75,001–$110,000	$22,223
$110,001+	$25,508
All income levels (average)	$15,840

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees (in-state), AY 2022-23: $10,043
Published tuition & fees (out-of-state), AY 2022-23: $22,650
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $15,840

That works out to roughly a 43% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $27,661 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).

Virginia State 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: 39%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 69%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $26,500 (~$281/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $45,543
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 67%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 88%

How to read these numbers

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

More school data

From the Virginia State Common Data Set 2024-2025:

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

19%of admitsget merit

Average award$5,201Covers ~22% of $23,278 cost of attendance

At Virginia State, roughly 1 in 5 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $5,201 — about 22% of total cost.

As filed in Virginia State's CDS Section H2A: of 1,482 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 280 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $5,201. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 968 of 5,124, averaging $4,290. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.

Receive institutional merit19%First-year students, Common Data Set 2024-2025

Average merit award$5,201Across recipients, Common Data Set 2024-2025

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

Other Virginia State scholarships worth checking

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

Founders Scholarship

Amount$6,500EligibilityFounder's Scholarship is renewable for one additional year if the student maintains a cumulative 3.0 GPA, completes at least 30 credit hours during the academic year, participates in the University Honors Program, and resides on campus.

Source

Virginia State merit aid FAQ

What is the deadline for Academic Excellence Honors Scholarship?
The deadline to receive and accept the Academic Excellence (Honors) Scholarship offer is May 1.
What is the deadline for University Scholarship?
The deadline to apply for the University Scholarship offer is May 31.
What is the deadline for Trojan Trailblazer Scholarship?
The deadline to receive and accept the Trojan Trailblazer Scholarship offer is May 1.
What is the deadline for Orange And Blue Scholarship?
The deadline to receive and accept the Orange and Blue Scholarship offer is May 1.

See sources and other schools

Sources used on this page

Every claim is checked against Virginia State’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Cost of attendanceVirginia State cost-of-attendance worksheet
Merit tiersArmy Rotc Scholarship Program

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