If you win a scholarship, will Marietta lower other aid?
We checked the school’s published rule so you can decide whether an outside award is worth your time.
Verified Jul 20262 months ago
The short answer
The scholarship can add to the aid already offered.
Two-award rule: a student may hold up to two non-need-based awards totaling no more than full tuition. Merit funds are tuition-only (except McCoy). Premier awards supersede all other college-funded awards, and full-tuition recipients get nothing additional. A short list of small awards ($1,000-$2,500) explicitly stacks with all other aid; another list (eSports, Fine Arts, McDonough, Music, Theatre, WV Pioneer) is one-per-student. Endowed scholarships swap in without increasing total institutional aid. Outside scholarships are ADDED to Marietta aid to the extent federal regulations permit (no institutional displacement). Need-based grants: scholarships+grants may not exceed tuition.
What to do
Use this rule to focus on awards that will lower what your family pays.
See the dollar example, school comparisons, and sources
Published policy type
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.
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.
Renewal ruleFirst-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
14 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use no-displacement displacement.
Marietta is in the small minority (14 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.
Marietta 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 Marietta’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
