What is the 2026-27 cost of attendance?

On-campus total $79,160 (tuition $54,760; fees $4,140; books $1,090; housing $8,430; food $7,650; transportation $2,130; personal $960). Off-campus $76,300; at home $71,420.

UDallas· Outside Scholarship Displacement

Will UDallas 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 UDallas

Cost-of-attendance cap

UDallas 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.

udallas.edu publishes the $79,160 cost-of-attendance worksheet the math is run against.

Source: https://udallas.edu/admissions-aid/financial-aid/types-of-aid-scholarships/index.php

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

Setup
Suppose you've stacked UDallas'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 UDallas does
Because total aid would exceed cost of attendance, UDallas 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.

Schools that handle this differently

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

When this rule bites hardest

Assuming National Merit Finalist status brings a large UDallas award
The National Merit Finalist Scholarship is only $2,000/year, and finalists who hold a corporate-sponsored or National Merit $2,500 award are not eligible for it.

Displacement questions families ask

What is the 2026-27 cost of attendance?: On-campus total $79,160 (tuition $54,760; fees $4,140; books $1,090; housing $8,430; food $7,650; transportation $2,130; personal $960). Off-campus $76,300; at home $71,420.

Rules that bite at UDallas

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

renewalFreshman Academic Achievement Scholarship (automatic merit grid): renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Requires full-time enrollment (12+ credits/semester) and Satisfactory Academic Progress; a 2.5 cumulative GPA is required by the end of sophomore year. GPAs of 2.0-2.4999 are prorated to 50%; below 2.0 the award is suspended. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
capHard $79,160 cost-of-attendance ceiling
Institutional aid at UDallas cannot push the package past $79,160. Big outside wins can mathematically reduce institutional grant once the ceiling is reached.

Aid-office script (copy & send)

The displacement rule is only binding when it's in writing. This script asks UDallas's aid office the specific question that matters for cost-of-attendance cap.

Subject: Outside-scholarship treatment question, fall applicant

Dear UDallas 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://udallas.edu/admissions-aid/financial-aid/types-of-aid-scholarships/index.php and the $79,160 cost-of-attendance worksheet.

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 UDallas compares across our verified dataset

62 of 272 verified schools in our dataset use cost-of-attendance cap displacement.
UDallas is in a recognizable cluster (62 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.
UDallas 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.
75 of 272 verified schools publish a dedicated National Merit Finalist package.
UDallas is one of them. NMF packages typically carry their own stacking and renewal carve-outs separate from the standard automatic merit ladder; confirm those before assuming the headline NMF value is final.

Sources used on this page

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