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Marietta· Outside Scholarship Displacement

Will Marietta Reduce Your Outside Scholarship?

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

Verified Jun 20264 days ago· COWORK

The rule at Marietta

No displacement

Marietta doesn't displace institutional aid at all. In plain dollar terms, that means a $5,000 outside award lowers the family bill by the full $5,000.

marietta.edu lists First-Year Scholarships, Fall 2026 and Spring 2027 (1835 Founders / Marietta Distinction / Compass / Riverside / Pioneer) as the baseline automatic award that any outside scholarship will sit on top of.

Source: https://www.marietta.edu/scholarships

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

  1. Setup

    Imagine you've already received Marietta's institutional merit award and you win a $5,000 outside scholarship from a community foundation.

  2. What Marietta does

    Marietta stacks the outside scholarship on top of institutional aid up to the cost of attendance. The full $5,000 reduces your family's bill.

  3. Family takeaway

    Outside scholarships are pure upside here. Apply broadly; every dollar you win is a dollar the family doesn't pay.

Schools with the same policy

These schools also use no displacement for outside scholarships. The same dollar math above applies at each.

Schools that handle this differently

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

Displacement questions families ask

Do outside scholarships reduce my Marietta aid?
No — per the page, 'Outside scholarships are additions to other financial aid awarded at Marietta to the extent permitted by federal regulations,' and are applied directly to the student's billing account.

Rules that bite at Marietta

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

  • renewalFirst-Year Scholarships, Fall 2026 and Spring 2027 (1835 Founders / Marietta Distinction / Compass / Riverside / Pioneer): renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out

    Automatically renewed for a total of four years (per the grid footnote). Must enroll full-time in first bachelor's degree program. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.

Aid-office script (copy & send)

The displacement rule is only binding when it's in writing. This script asks Marietta's aid office the specific question that matters for no displacement.

Subject: Outside-scholarship treatment question, fall applicant

Dear Marietta 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.marietta.edu/scholarships.

Can you confirm that a $5,000 private outside scholarship, added after my package is built, stacks on top of institutional merit and need-based aid up to COA, without reducing any institutional grant dollars?

Is there a specific reporting form I need to file when the outside award is confirmed?

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 Marietta compares across our verified dataset

  • 19 of 751 verified schools in our dataset use no-displacement displacement.

    Marietta is in the small minority (19 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.

  • 669 of 751 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.

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

More on Marietta merit aid