If you win a scholarship, will Regent Online 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 school limits total aid to its published cost.
On the evening/online awards page, students eligible for multiple listed awards may receive only ONE — Regent picks whichever is the largest/most beneficial — with the Church Match Grant as the sole stated exception that can combine with any listed award. All scholarships and grants pay toward tuition only, and COA caps total aid from all sources.
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
Cost-of-attendance cap
Regent Online only displaces institutional aid when the package would exceed COA. In plain dollar terms, that means an outside award only starts cutting institutional grant once the total package exceeds the COA worksheet.
The math: a $5,000 outside scholarship at Regent Online
Setup
Suppose you've stacked Regent Online's institutional merit + housing scholarship to a combined value within ~$5,000 of cost of attendance. You then win a $5,000 outside scholarship.
What Regent Online does
Because total aid would exceed cost of attendance, Regent Online reduces its institutional contribution by the amount that pushes you over. The outside award fills the cap, not the family wallet.
Family takeaway
For the highest-merit students at COA-cap schools, outside scholarships can mathematically displace institutional aid once the package is near full-COA. Run the cap math before applying.
Schools with the same policy
These schools also use cost-of-attendance cap for outside scholarships. The same dollar math above applies at each.
The COA page states cost of attendance 'determines the total financial aid from all sources that you are permitted to receive' — outside awards plus institutional aid are capped at COA.
Displacement questions families ask
What does the 2026-27 cost of attendance look like?
Regent publishes 2026-27 indirect cost estimates by category (e.g., dependent undergrad living off campus: $17,334 total indirect including $9,216 housing and $3,392 food); tuition is charged separately by program, and no single all-in COA total is published on the COA page.
Does Regent help find outside scholarships?
Yes — the financial aid office shares third-party scholarship opportunities but 'does not endorse these scholarships' and points students to FTC scam-awareness resources. How outside awards affect institutional aid is not published; ask the aid office.
Aid-office script (copy & send)
The displacement rule is only binding when it's in writing. This script asks Regent Online's aid office the specific question that matters for cost-of-attendance cap.
Subject: Outside-scholarship treatment question, fall applicant
Dear Regent Online 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.regent.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/forms/scholarships-for-eveningonline-students/.
If my package is institutional merit + Pell + a $5,000 outside scholarship and the total stays under the COA worksheet, can you confirm no institutional dollar is reduced?
If the same outside award pushes the total over COA by $X, which aid line item shrinks first: institutional grant, loan, or work-study?
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 Regent Online compares across our verified dataset
235 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use cost-of-attendance cap displacement.
Regent Online is in a recognizable cluster (235 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.
Regent Online 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 Regent Online’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
