What is the full cost of attendance for 2026-27?

$61,880 for 9 months on campus (tuition $40,572; fees $550; loan fees $60; books $900; housing $7,678; food $7,600; transportation $1,520; personal $3,000). Off-campus is $59,110 and living with parent is $52,174.

Hendrix· Outside Scholarship Displacement

Will Hendrix Reduce Your Outside Scholarship?

When you win a private scholarship, who actually keeps the money: your family, or the school?

Verified Jun 2026today· COWORK

The rule at Hendrix

Mixed displacement

Hendrix displaces some aid categories but not others. In plain dollar terms, that means one $5,000 outside award might land against loans, work-study, or institutional grant depending on the category, so outcomes vary.

hendrix.edu publishes the $61,880 cost-of-attendance worksheet the math is run against.

Source: https://www.hendrix.edu/financialaid/scholarships/

The math: a $5,000 outside scholarship at Hendrix

Setup
Hendrix treats different aid types differently. You receive institutional merit + need-based grant + a federal loan offer, then win a $5,000 outside scholarship.
What Hendrix does
Some categories reduce first; others stack. Without writing to the aid office, you cannot predict whether the $5,000 cuts loans, work-study, or institutional aid.
Family takeaway
Mixed-displacement schools require a written aid-office answer for each award size. Don't assume the answer matches a peer school.

Schools with the same policy

These schools also use mixed displacement for outside scholarships. The same dollar math above applies at each.

Schools that handle this differently

If Hendrix’s policy concerns you, these schools treat outside scholarships under a different rule.

When this rule bites hardest

Thinking the Murphy full-ride stacks on top of your Hendrix merit
For the three competitively selected El Dorado recipients, the Murphy Foundation award is last-dollar and REPLACES any previously awarded Hendrix merit-based aid; only the $4,000 consolation Murphy award is additive.
Confusing the direct-cost total with the full cost of attendance
Hendrix publishes a $56,400 direct-cost (tuition+fees+housing+food) total and a separate full 9-month on-campus COA of $61,880 that adds books, loan fees, transportation and personal expenses.

Displacement questions families ask

What is the full cost of attendance for 2026-27?: $61,880 for 9 months on campus (tuition $40,572; fees $550; loan fees $60; books $900; housing $7,678; food $7,600; transportation $1,520; personal $3,000). Off-campus is $59,110 and living with parent is $52,174.

Rules that bite at Hendrix

Trip wires derived from Hendrix's own published policy. These are the things a custom playbook would flag in the first pass.

displacementDifferent aid types are displaced differently
Hendrix treats loans, work-study, and institutional grant under different rules. The same $5,000 outside award can land against any of them depending on category.

Aid-office script (copy & send)

The displacement rule is only binding when it's in writing. This script asks Hendrix's aid office the specific question that matters for mixed displacement.

Subject: Outside-scholarship treatment question, fall applicant

Dear Hendrix Financial Aid Office,

I'm a fall applicant reviewing how outside scholarships interact with my institutional aid package. I've read the public policy at https://www.hendrix.edu/financialaid/scholarships/ and the $61,880 cost-of-attendance worksheet.

Which institutional aid types are protected from outside-award displacement, and which can be reduced?

Is the displacement order published anywhere internally, even if not on the public site? Families need this to compare schools.

A written answer (email is fine) is important because the outside-scholarship awarding bodies want confirmation before disbursing. Thank you for the time.

— [Student name], [Application ID if available]

How Hendrix compares across our verified dataset

31 of 272 verified schools in our dataset use mixed displacement.
Hendrix is in the modest minority (31 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
247 of 272 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Hendrix is one of them. The cohort minority (25 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 Hendrix’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.