University of Arkansas–Fort Smith Scholarships (2026–2027)

📅 2027–2028 Planning Note: The costs below reflect the most recently published figures (2026–2027). Universities typically finalize the next year’s rates in the spring, and we’ll update this page once official 2027–2028 numbers are released.

Planning tip: At large public universities, tuition, fees, and housing usually increase modestly each year (often in the 2–5% range). For early budgeting, families may want to plan for roughly $1,000–$1,500 more in-state or $2,000–$3,000 more out-of-state in total direct costs once new rates are published.

Average Federal Net Price: $10,387 — this is what families actually paid after grants and scholarships (no loans), based on the most recent federal data. Your specific cost could be significantly lower or higher depending on your financial aid eligibility and merit scholarships. New to Net Price & SAI? Read our guide.

📌 Regional Tuition & Waiver Options

💡 The Border State Waiver Is the Whole Story for Out-of-State Families

If you live in Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, or Texas, stop comparing the out-of-state column. You do not pay it. UAFS classifies you as out-of-state and then applies a waiver that covers the entire difference, dropping you to $228 per credit hour, the exact rate an Arkansas resident pays. The only requirement is that you have lived in that state for six consecutive months before classes start, and that your residency was established for a reason other than attending UAFS. The Registrar’s Office makes the call and the Cashier’s Office applies it to your bill.

Sources:
https://uafs.edu/tuition-and-aid/tuition-and-fees/undergraduate-tuition-fees.php
https://uafs.edu/tuition-and-aid/tuition-and-fees/cost-of-attendance.php
https://uafs.edu/guarantee/index.php

📅 UAFS Scholarship Timeline (Simple Version)

• October 1: The Prestigious Scholarship application opens inside the admissions portal.
• Mid-November: Preferred date for Myles Friedman Honors Scholarship candidates.
• Mid-January: Hard deadline for all four Prestigious awards, including essays, letters, and resume.
• March 15: Housing application deadline. Miss it and you can forfeit the housing portion of a Prestigious award entirely.
• May 1: Automatic merit deadline. Admission application, official transcript, and official scores must all be in.
• June 1: Counselor deadline for Arkansas Scholars certification, and the final Lion’s Share window.

Parent rule of thumb: the mid-January Prestigious date is your real deadline, not the May one. By the time most families notice the May date, the biggest awards have already closed.

These five tiers are awarded off your admission application. There is no separate form. Apply by May 1 with an official transcript and official placement scores on file. UAFS does not superscore, so the highest single test date is what counts.

One award, not a pile. Colleges apply your student's single best automatic award. Automatic scholarships almost never stack with each other, though some stack with housing, departmental, or outside money. The stacking notes on each card tell you which.

🧠 Two Things the Award Table Does Not Make Obvious

1. Every tier is an “or,” never an “and.” Gold is a 27 ACT or a 3.8 GPA. Silver is a 25 ACT or a 3.6. Bronze is a 21 or a 3.25. A student who tests poorly but carries a strong transcript lands in exactly the same tier as a student who does the reverse. The one exception is Platinum, which asks for a 30 ACT and a 4.0 together. But Platinum also has a second door: valedictorian status qualifies on its own, with no test score or GPA threshold attached.

2. Every tier carries the same $1,500 housing stipend. It is easy to read the table as $1,000 to $6,000. The real spread is $2,500 to $7,500 once the Lion’s Den housing stipend is added, and that stipend runs for up to four years. It is only good for Lion’s Den housing, though, so a student who commutes leaves it on the table.

Sources:
https://uafs.edu/tuition-and-aid/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships/freshman.php
https://uafs.edu/admissions/freshmen/index.php

UAFS calls these its Prestigious Scholarships, and there are only four of them. Three are listed here. The fourth, the Myles Friedman Honors award, sits in the Honors section below because it runs through a separate program admission. All four share one deadline in mid-January and one application inside the Admissions Application Status Portal.

Aid Type	Stacks with UAFS Merit?	Parent Translation
Automatic Merit Tiers	Not with each other	Your student gets one tier, the highest they qualify for.
Prestigious Awards	Replaces	Win Boreham, First Bank Corp., STEM, or Honors and it takes the place of your automatic tier. You get the bigger number, not both.
Arkansas Academic Challenge	Yes	State lottery money layers cleanly on top of anything UAFS gives you.
Federal Pell Grant	Yes	Need-based federal aid never competes with merit here. It also unlocks the Tuition Guarantee.
Lion’s Share foundation awards	Usually yes	Donor-funded gap fillers. Individual funds set their own rules, but most combine.
Music and ensemble awards	Yes	Talent-based, and open to non-majors. One of the few reliable ways to add money on top of a merit tier.
Arkansas Scholars	No	Will not combine with any other UAFS tuition scholarship. Compare it against your merit tier and take the larger.

⚠️ Read the Major Lock Before You Commit

All three of these awards are tied to a specific college. UAFS puts it plainly on its own page: changing majors could result in the loss of the award. The Boreham applies only to coursework completed while your student is pursuing a UAFS engineering degree. First Bank Corp. requires staying inside the College of Business and Industry. The STEM award carries an extra wrinkle for engineering majors, applying only while the student is completing the Associate of Science in electrical or mechanical engineering with UAFS as home institution.

Parent translation: if your seventeen-year-old is not sure about the major, a Prestigious award is a $30,000 bet on that certainty. That is not a reason to skip it. It is a reason to have the conversation in the fall of senior year rather than the spring of freshman year.

❓ Flagship / Competitive Scholarship FAQs

When is the Prestigious deadline?
Mid-January of the senior year. The application opens the previous October 1 inside the Admissions Application Status Portal, and your student has to be admitted to UAFS before they can access it. Essays, recommendation letters, and the resume all have to be in by that same date.

Which of these is worth the most?
The Boreham Jr. Engineering Scholarship, by a clear margin. It covers full tuition and fees, every required book and supply for engineering coursework, and an optional $2,000 housing stipend every year. The other Prestigious awards cap their housing at $2,500 across two years, so the Boreham housing benefit is worth roughly three times as much over four years.

Do these require a higher test score than the automatic tiers?
Yes, and they use an “and” instead of an “or.” Boreham and First Bank Corp. both list a 27 ACT alongside a 3.5 GPA. The STEM award lists a preferred 26 ACT with a 3.5 GPA. Compare that to Gold, which takes a 27 ACT or a 3.8 GPA on its own.

Which majors qualify for the STEM Scholarship?
Biology, biology with teacher licensure, chemistry, computer science, geoscience, mathematics, mathematics with teacher licensure, and engineering. It pays $5,500 per year toward tuition and fees, up to $27,000 over four years with the housing portion included.

What is the housing catch everyone misses?
Two things. First, the housing application is due March 15, well before most families are thinking about dorm assignments. Second, if a student declines the housing portion in the first year, they forfeit the entire housing benefit permanently. It must be used in consecutive years. A student who commutes freshman year and moves on campus as a sophomore loses that money for good.

Is renewal harder on these than the automatic tiers?
Noticeably. All three Prestigious awards require 15 credit hours every semester and 30 completed hours per year, plus a 3.0 UAFS GPA. The automatic tiers only ask for 12 hours per semester and 24 per year. That extra course each term is a real commitment for a student who is also working.

Sources:
https://uafs.edu/tuition-and-aid/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships/freshman.php
https://uafs.edu/engineering/index.php

🧠 Parent Strategy: The Guarantee Rule Nobody Reads

Most families see the UAFS Tuition and Mandatory Fee Guarantee and think of it as a safety net for low-income students. It is that. But buried in the FAQ is a rule that turns it into something better.

If your student’s Pell Grant and Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship already cover the full tuition and fee bill, their institutional merit money does not disappear. UAFS lets that excess be applied to on-campus housing, books from the campus bookstore, and meal plans instead. It will not be refunded to you as cash, but it stops being wasted.

1. File the FAFSA and confirm Pell eligibility.
2. Complete the ADHE Scholarship Application through the SAMS portal for the Academic Challenge.
3. Enroll full time and hold satisfactory academic progress.
4. Then let the merit tier land on top and redirect it toward room, board, and books.

Parent translation: for an Arkansas family that qualifies for both Pell and Academic Challenge, a Gold or Silver merit award can quietly become a housing and meal plan subsidy instead of a redundant tuition credit. That is the single most valuable thing on this page.

🎵 The Easiest Money on Campus

UAFS awards talent-based music scholarships to students who audition, and the department states clearly that these go to students majoring in something other than music as well. If your student played in a high school band or sang in choir and has no intention of majoring in it, an audition is still a legitimate path to a few thousand dollars a year that stacks on top of academic merit. Scheduling is now handled through an online audition form rather than fixed audition dates, and video submissions are accepted.

❓ Hidden Gems FAQ

What is Lion’s Share and do we have to apply separately?
Lion’s Share is the UAFS Foundation’s donor scholarship portal, with more than 250 opportunities worth close to $2 million. For incoming freshmen, matching happens through the Admissions Status Portal as part of admission, so there is no separate profile to build. Continuing UAFS students use the standalone Lion’s Share application, which opens in October, has a late-February priority date, and closes June 1.

Which hidden gem has the earliest deadline?
The Arkansas Governor’s Scholars Program, by a wide margin. It closes February 1 of the senior year, and UAFS notes that late applications are simply not considered. It is also the highest bar on this page, asking for a 32 ACT or 1410 SAT plus a 3.5 GPA, but it pays up to $10,000 a year and it can reach room and board, not just tuition.

Our student goes to a Fort Smith area high school. Does that help?
It can, in two specific ways. The Arkansas Scholars Scholarship is limited to certified Arkansas Scholars from eight named schools: Alma, Greenwood, Mountainburg, Northside, Ozark, Southside, Van Buren, and Westside. The Sebastian County Academic Opportunity award is tied to county residency and is the only award outside the Boreham engineering package that includes a book and supply allowance.

What is the catch on Arkansas Scholars?
Two catches. First, your student does not apply. The high school counselor certifies them and sends the list to UAFS Financial Aid by June 1, so this depends entirely on a counselor conversation. Second, it will not combine with any other UAFS tuition scholarship, and at $1,000 a year for two years it is worth less than most merit tiers. Compare before you count on it.

Can current UAFS students get these?
Several, yes. Lion’s Share is open to continuing students, the music and ensemble awards run every year, the Patricia Mings endowed award is open to full-time music students, and the Washington Center Scholarship is aimed at upperclassmen doing a D.C. internship term. The Guarantee also applies to current degree-seeking students who meet the criteria.

Does the Guarantee cover summer classes?
No. It covers fall and spring only. It also does not touch non-mandatory fees, course-specific fees, housing, or meal plans, and it does not stack with the Smart Start Transfer Waiver for transfer students.

How will we know if we got one of these?
Through the financial aid award notification once the package is finalized. Foundation and departmental awards often arrive later than the automatic merit decision, so a spring award letter is not necessarily the final word.

Sources:
https://uafs.edu/guarantee/index.php
https://uafs.edu/tuition-and-aid/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships/lions-share.php
https://uafs.edu/academics/colleges-and-schools/college-of-arts-and-sciences/departments/resources/music-auditions.php

⚠️ The Two-Deadline Trap

These are not the same date and they do not do the same thing. The Honors Program lists a priority application date in mid-December. The Honors Scholarship lists a preferred date in mid-November. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis throughout the year, which means a student can be admitted to the Honors Program in February and still have missed the window where the $34,000 was competitive. If the scholarship is the goal, work backward from mid-November, not mid-December.

Do the Math on “Full Tuition”

UAFS describes this award as full in-state tuition and mandatory fees, and then attaches a figure: approximately $7,338.50 per year, split into about $3,669.25 each fall and spring. Published full-time in-state tuition and mandatory fees for a 15-hour semester load run $10,181 per year.

Those two numbers do not match, and the difference is not a typo. The award is capped at a stated dollar figure, which lands it closer to a very large tuition scholarship than to a true full-tuition guarantee at a 30-hour annual pace. Combined with the optional $2,500 housing stipend across two years, that is where the roughly $34,000 four-year total comes from. Ask the Honors office directly how the cap interacts with a 15-hour schedule before you build a budget around it.

Sources:
https://uafs.edu/academics/honors-program/index.php
https://uafs.edu/tuition-and-aid/financial-aid/types-of-aid/scholarships/freshman.php

The Program Worth Understanding First:
Engineering — For 24 years UAFS has run a 2+2 partnership with the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Students complete freshman and sophomore engineering coursework taught by UAFS faculty at UAFS tuition rates, then move into junior and senior courses taught by University of Arkansas faculty, delivered on the Fort Smith campus. The degree that comes out the other end is a University of Arkansas BSEE or BSME. Students who finish the Associate of Science at UAFS gain guaranteed admission into the corresponding bachelor’s program provided they meet transfer requirements. In fall 2025 the partnership was renewed and UAFS launched its first standalone four-year engineering degree in Advanced Manufacturing Engineering.

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