Louisiana Scholarships & Grants (2027–2028): TOPS, GO Grant & M.J. Foster Deadlines

How Louisiana State Aid Actually Works

Louisiana aid has two front doors, and you have to walk through both.

Door 1: the FAFSA

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid is the application for TOPS, for the GO Grant, and for the federal Pell Grant, all at once. You do not fill out a separate TOPS form. If a family is certain they will not qualify for any federal aid, LOSFA offers a TOPS Online Application instead, but it applies for TOPS and nothing else. For almost every family, the FAFSA is the better door because it opens more than one program.

Door 2: the LOSFA Student Hub

The Student Hub is where Louisiana keeps the official record: core curriculum progress, the TOPS core GPA, the ACT score LOSFA actually received, the award level, and later the college GPA and earned hours the state uses to decide whether your check goes out. Your college portal is not the same record. When the two disagree, the Hub is what governs the payment.

Your move: tonight, open the Student Hub and look at two numbers, the core GPA and the core units completed. That is a ten-minute job that tells you which of the five levels is actually in play.

The Five Levels of TOPS, and What Each One Pays

Every level requires the same three things: the 19.0 core units, a minimum core GPA, and a minimum test score. You do not pick your level. LOSFA sorts you into the highest one you qualify for. Getting one point higher on the ACT can move you a whole level, which is why the test calendar in the next section matters so much.

The Opportunity score requirement is written as the prior year’s Louisiana state average, but never less than 20. It is currently 20. Students who graduate from a home study program or from an out-of-state high school face different, higher score requirements under TOPS alternate eligibility, so check the LOSFA testing page for those.

The one number on this page you have to look up yourself

TOPS does not pay one statewide figure. The Opportunity, Performance, and Honors award is a specific dollar amount set for your campus, based on that campus’s 2016–2017 tuition. LSU’s number and Nicholls’s number are different. We are not publishing a table of those amounts here, because they change by institution and by program, and a wrong number in a family budget is worse than no number. LOSFA publishes the official list: the TOPS OPH and Excellence award amount files are linked from the TOPS Information page.

Your move: pull that file, find your campus, and write the number on the same page as the college’s tuition and fee schedule. The gap between those two lines is your actual starting bill, before housing.

The need-based layer most families do not ask about

TOPS is merit-only. It does not look at income. Louisiana’s need-based program is the GO Grant, and it is the piece families most often miss because it never sends you a letter. To get it you must receive a Federal Pell Grant and still have remaining financial need after your SAI and all your gift aid are subtracted from your cost of attendance. Two terms worth defining, because they run this whole calculation:

• COA (cost of attendance) is the college’s full published estimate for a year: tuition, fees, housing, meals, books, transportation, personal costs. It is not the tuition bill.
• SAI (Student Aid Index) is the number the FAFSA produces to estimate what your family can contribute. It replaced the old EFC in 2024. If a form or a handout still says EFC, it is out of date.
• Gift aid is money you do not repay: Pell, SEOG, TOPS, TOPS stipends, and scholarships from the college. Loans and work-study are not gift aid.

GO Grant is awarded by your college out of an allocation the state sends it, using that college’s own written packaging policy, and it is not paid for summer terms. It is also capped by a rule most families never see: gift aid including the GO Grant is generally not supposed to exceed 60 percent of your financial need. That is why an outside scholarship can sometimes shrink a GO Grant rather than add to it.

The Superscore Rule That Costs Louisiana Families the Most

TOPS does not accept an ACT superscore. Your college probably does. You will be carrying two different official scores at the same time.

A superscore combines the best section scores from different test dates into one higher composite. Most colleges use it. Louisiana does not. LOSFA states plainly on every award page that TOPS requires a composite score from a single test sitting and does not accept superscores. So a student can walk into a Louisiana university with a 27 superscore that earns the university’s money, and be sorted by the state into Performance instead of Honors on a 25 composite. The college letter and the state letter will not match, and neither one is a mistake.

Among the eleven Louisiana colleges in our database, ULM, Southeastern, UNO, and Tulane superscore the ACT for their own awards, and McNeese and Northwestern State do not. The state does not, for anyone.

Your move: build the ACT plan around three tries that all land by April of senior year. In Louisiana, October, December, and February beat February, April, and June.

Major Louisiana Programs

Six programs cover most of what a Louisiana undergraduate family will actually receive. Every one of them is administered by LOSFA, and every one of them starts with the FAFSA.

The 24-Hour Year, and the Summer That Saves It

The TOPS academic year does not end in May. It ends when the next fall term begins, and summer counts.

To keep TOPS you have to earn 24 credit hours per TOPS academic year. LOSFA defines that year as starting with the fall term of the award year and ending immediately before the next fall term begins, including every intersession and every summer session. Two consequences, and the second one is the good news.

• Earned means earned. A withdrawal produces a W, and a W is not an earned hour. A student who registers for 15 and drops one 3-hour class each semester finishes the year at 24 exactly, with no cushion. Drop two and the award is gone.
• Summer is a rescue lane. Because the year does not close until the next fall starts, a student who ends spring at 21 hours can still take 3 hours over the summer and land at 24. This is the single most useful thing a Louisiana parent can know in April.
• Intersession hours are half-useful. Hours earned in the intersession between fall and spring count toward the 24, but they do not count toward full-time enrollment.
• Taking a summer TOPS payment costs you. A payment made during summer reduces your remaining semesters of eligibility by one. Paying out of pocket for the make-up class, if you can, protects the eighth semester.

Falling short does not always mean losing it

Louisiana built in a landing pad that families rarely hear about. A Performance, Honors, or Excellence student who finishes a year below a 3.00 cumulative GPA but at or above a 2.30 (with 24 to 47 hours earned) or a 2.50 (with 48 or more) is not cancelled. The award continues as an Opportunity Award without the stipend. Below those numbers, the award is suspended, not cancelled, and it comes back if the GPA is regained within 24 months.

What is not recoverable that way is a process failure. Failing to enroll full time, breaking continuous enrollment, or missing the 24 hours results in cancellation, and it cannot be reinstated without an approved Request for Exception filed with LOSFA. A GPA problem is a second chance. A paperwork problem is usually not.

Your move: in early April, add up earned hours for the year so far. If the number is under 24, register for summer before the spring semester ends, while advising is still easy to reach.

Louisiana State Aid Deadlines

Louisiana runs two kinds of deadlines: the ones that repeat every year on the same calendar, and the ones that only start mattering after the award is already running. Families watch the first set and get caught by the second.

The dates that repeat every year

The dates inside the year, once the award is running

These are the ones that catch families after the scholarship is already won. Screenshot this.

Confirm current-year dates on LOSFA’s Applying for TOPS page before relying on them, and confirm class-day dates with your campus registrar, because academic calendars differ.

How Louisiana Aid Stacks With College Scholarships

TOPS is the base layer, not the answer. It pays the same amount at every eligible campus in the state, so it does not change which college is cheapest. What changes the bill is what the college adds on top, and how the need-based pieces interact.

The stacking rules that are actually written down

• TOPS and college merit generally stack. Most Louisiana campuses award their automatic scholarships on top of TOPS. A few structure their awards as “tuition and fees less TOPS,” which is not the same thing. McNeese’s Honors College award is written that way. Read the wording before you add the numbers.
• TOPS counts as gift aid against the GO Grant. TOPS and TOPS stipends are subtracted from your need before GO Grant is calculated. That is why a bigger TOPS award can mean a smaller GO Grant.
• M.J. Foster cannot be combined with TOPS. It is one or the other.
• Total aid cannot exceed cost of attendance. If it does, the college unwinds the package in a set order: federal loans first, then institutional aid and TOPS. A late outside scholarship can quietly displace something else rather than adding to the total.
• Excellence is capped, not unlimited. $12,000 at a public, $8,500 at a LAICU private, and only up to actual tuition and mandatory fees.

Two worked examples

Both are illustrative. The costs are round numbers chosen to show the shape of the math, not quotes from any campus. The TOPS award amount is campus-specific and has to be looked up.

Comparing offers from more than one school? Use our guide to comparing aid offers like a pro, and put every offer on the same cost-of-attendance basis before you compare a single number.

Common Ways Louisiana Aid Gets Lost

Almost none of these are about a student not being good enough. They are calendar problems and paperwork problems, which means they are preventable.

If something has already gone wrong, ask about the Request for Exception form. You are allowed to ask. Medical events, deployments, and family emergencies are exactly what that process exists for, and nobody will offer it to you unprompted.

Who Benefits Most (Reality Check)

Low-income families

This is where Louisiana stacks best, and it depends entirely on filing the FAFSA early. Pell plus TOPS plus GO Grant plus a college award is the combination that produces the big drop. GO Grant is the fragile piece: it is packaged out of a finite campus allocation and it is calculated last, on whatever need is left. Filing in the fall rather than the spring is worth real money here.

Middle-income families

TOPS will likely be the only state money you see, and it will cover a fraction of tuition frozen at 2016 levels. Your leverage is almost entirely in the college’s own automatic scholarship grid and in the December-to-January deadlines that decide it. Two Louisiana publics with similar sticker prices can differ by thousands a year for the exact same transcript.

High-achieving students

The gap between a 30 and a 31 ACT is now the largest single-point jump in Louisiana. A 31 with a 3.50 core GPA moves a student from the Honors award, which pays a frozen tuition figure plus $800, to the Excellence award, which pays tuition and mandatory fees up to $12,000. Since TOPS will not superscore, that jump has to happen in one sitting, and by April. If a 31 is within reach, it is worth more test prep than anything else on this page.

Students who test poorly

Louisiana is a test-score state, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Every TOPS level has a score floor, and there is no GPA-only door. But the floor is lower than families think: a 20 for Opportunity, a 17 for TOPS Tech, and WorkKeys at Silver as an alternative to a composite score entirely. On the college side, UNO pays automatic money at a 20 ACT with a 2.75 GPA, the lowest combined floor among the eleven Louisiana colleges in our database, and Northwestern State and ULM both start at a 20.

Adult and returning students

TOPS is effectively closed to you, because it requires first-time full-time enrollment within a year of high school graduation. The M.J. Foster Promise Program is built for you instead: $3,200 a year, up to $6,400 total, for credentials in high-demand fields, with an income test at 300 percent of the federal poverty level or a six-month unemployment or underemployment qualifier. Pell and GO Grant are open to you on the same terms as anyone else, and GO Grant packaging policies are required to give priority to students 25 and over.

First-generation families

Same eligibility as everyone else, higher risk of losing it to a missed step. Louisiana aid is process aid: the Hub account, the test code, the 15th class day, the 24-hour count, the exception form. If you feel behind, you are not. You need a checklist, not a miracle. Start with our First-Gen Parent Guide and the grade-level checklists.

Colleges That Stack Best With Louisiana Aid

TOPS pays a campus-specific amount, but it pays it wherever you go, and it is not a reason to pick one Louisiana school over another. So the real question is not where state aid goes furthest. It is which college hands your student the most money on top of it, at the numbers they actually have. Below are the eleven Louisiana colleges currently in the CRP database with verified award tiers. Every figure marked automatic means no essay, no interview, no committee: admission and your stats do the work.

The lowest academic bar for real money

• University of New Orleans: the lowest automatic floor in Louisiana. The First-Time Freshman Merit Award pays $1,000 to $3,000 at a 20 ACT with a 2.75 GPA, then Honors & Excellence $4,000 at a 26 with a 3.00, and Privateer Premier $5,000 at a 30. The competitive Homer Hitt Scholarship is $18,750 a year, $75,000 over four years, at a 32 ACT with a 3.50 plus an interview, with finalist interviews in early March. UNO superscores. Priority December 15, but the final admissions-based scholarship date is July 15, which is the latest real second chance in the state for a family that started late. Transfers get $1,000 to $2,000 at a 3.00, or $2,000 through Phi Theta Kappa.
• Northwestern State University (Natchitoches): awards are quoted per semester, so double them for the annual figure. The NSU Award pays $200 to $500 a semester at a 20 ACT with a 3.00, and the NSU Opportunity Award pays $900 a semester at a 20 with a 3.75. Outstanding Student $900 a semester at a 24, Academic Excellence $1,200 at a 26, Presidential Scholars $1,500 at a 28. There is no fixed deadline: awards are made when the admission file is complete, which rewards applying early. Does not superscore. The Louisiana Scholars’ College, the state’s designated honors college, adds a $1,500 per semester tuition waiver. Transfers with a 3.25 get $1,500 a year.
• University of Louisiana at Monroe: the deepest published grid in the state, and it runs on two GPA bands so a 3.00 student is not shut out. Ace’s Award $1,000 at a 20 ACT, Academic Merit $2,000 at a 23, Academic Excellence $3,000 at a 27 (or $3,500 with a 3.50), President’s Distinguished $5,000 at a 30 (or $6,000 with a 3.50). Superscores. Apply by January 31, with official scores accepted through May 31, which is unusually forgiving. The Foundation scholarship portal is a separate application open roughly February 8 to March 8 and includes several first-generation funds.

The biggest automatic dollars

• Louisiana Tech University (Ruston): a clean automatic ladder at a 3.00 GPA, from $1,000 (Academic Choice, 20 ACT with a 3.75) and $2,000 to $2,500 at a 23, up through $4,000 to $4,500 at a 27, $6,000 to $6,500 at a 31, Deans at $8,000 to $8,500 at a 32, and Presidential at $9,000 to $9,500 at a 33. Deadline January 15. The standout is National Merit: Tech offers unlimited full-ride awards covering tuition, fees, on-campus housing and meals for four years to Finalists who name Tech first choice. The Bulldog Out-of-State Scholarship starts at a 23 ACT with a 2.50.
• McNeese State University (Lake Charles): a two-band grid where the 3.50 row pays more than the 3.25 row at the same score. Academic Excellence $3,500 at a 21 ACT with a 3.50, John McNeese $5,000 or $5,500 at a 24, University Scholars $7,500 or $8,000 at a 27, Presidential $9,000 at a 30. Deadlines split: admission by December 15, test scores by March 31. Does not superscore, which matters here because the state does not either. The Honors College award covers tuition and fees less TOPS plus partial room and board at a 27 with a 3.40, so read it as a top-up rather than a stack.
• Grambling State University (HBCU, Grambling): automatic academic awards of $3,000 at a 23 ACT with a 3.50, $5,140 at a 24 with a 3.00, and $7,683 at a 25 or above, which Grambling flags as covering full tuition. Apply by January 31 for automatic consideration. Renewal is a 3.00. The Earl Lester Cole Honors College adds $1,000 to $2,500. Grambling also runs a large donor scholarship program through AwardSpring, including a $4,500 award for computing majors with a 3.50 and a first-generation endowed fund.

The clean automatic grids

• Southeastern Louisiana University (Hammond): a simple three-step Honors Scholarship at a 3.00 GPA: $2,500 at a 24 ACT, $3,750 at a 27, $4,000 at a 30. Superscores. Priority admission application January 15, with scores and GPA accepted through August 1, one of the latest score dates in the state. Worth knowing for dual enrollment families: Southeastern pays a $1,000 Dual Enrollment Completion Award for students arriving with 15 or more college hours. National Merit adds $2,000.
• Nicholls State University (Thibodaux): the Academic Honor Scholarship pays $2,000 to $4,500 at a 21 ACT with a 3.00, and the separate Housing and Meals Scholarship pays another $2,000 to $4,500 on the same stats. That second award is the reason Nicholls belongs on any Louisiana list, because housing is the exact cost TOPS never reaches. The catch is the calendar: the deadline is January 5, the earliest in the state, and it does not superscore. Alumni Federation and Foundation awards run separately with a March 31 date.

A different model entirely: competitive, not automatic

• Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge): the flagship, and the one Louisiana public in our database with no automatic award tiers recorded at all. Its signature awards are competitive and essay-based: the President’s Alumni Scholars Award and the Stamps Scholarship each cover full cost of attendance for four years, roughly $33,000 a year for residents and $50,000 for nonresidents, with Stamps adding up to $14,000 in enrichment funding. The scholarship priority deadline is December 15 and there is no second window. Beyond that, the money is in the Ogden Honors College awards ($500 to $5,000), departmental scholarships ($1,000 to $4,000, most closing March to mid-April), and the NSF-funded PRISE program for engineering students with need. If your student’s plan depends on LSU merit, the plan has to include an application, not just an admission.
• Southern University and A&M College (HBCU, Baton Rouge): also competitive rather than automatic, and the awards at the top are large. The Jesse N. Stone Scholarship covers full tuition and fees at a 28 ACT with a 3.60, and the Joseph S. Clark Presidential Scholarship covers tuition, fees, room and board at a 30 with a 3.80. The Honors College University Scholars award is also a full ride at a 26 with a 3.50. Nearly all of it runs on a January 5 priority deadline, so Southern is a school you have to decide on early. Renewal on the top awards requires a 15-credit load, which is above the 12 hours that counts as full time. The Jaguar Out-of-State Fee Waiver starts at a 24 ACT with a 2.75.
• Tulane University (New Orleans, private): admission-based merit reaches $32,000 a year with no separate application, priority November 1, and Tulane superscores. Two things matter specifically for Louisiana families. The Louisiana Excellence Award is a full-tuition award reserved for Louisiana residents, with materials due by the December 5 scholarship deadline. And Louisiana Promise is a no-loan commitment for qualifying Louisiana families, tied to Tulane’s need deadline, typically mid-April, and requiring the CSS Profile in addition to the FAFSA. Note that TOPS is portable to LAICU privates like Tulane at a weighted-average amount, and the Excellence cap at a LAICU school is $8,500 rather than $12,000. Paul Tulane and Dean’s Honor are full-tuition competitive awards on the same early-December timeline; Tulane/Stamps targets full cost of attendance and is invitation-based.

The two-year and transfer pathway

Starting at a community or technical college is a legitimate Louisiana strategy, and the state has built the plumbing for it. The Transfer Degree Guarantee means a community college student who completes the designated associate degree transfers into a Louisiana public four-year university with junior-level standing in most majors. That is a structural guarantee, not a case-by-case appeal.

• Watch the clock, not just the credits. TOPS Opportunity through Excellence is eight semesters, up to twelve terms of payment. TOPS Tech is two years, six terms. Semesters spent at the two-year school come out of the same total.
• The 24-hour and full-time rules follow you. They are state rules, not campus rules, and they apply at the community college exactly as they do at the university.
• Transfer awards are real money at the receiving school. Northwestern State pays $1,500 a year at a 3.25, UNO pays $1,000 to $2,000 at a 3.00 plus $2,000 for Phi Theta Kappa members, and Grambling has a transfer academic award at a 3.50 with 24 or more credits.
• Dual enrollment can pay twice. TOPS Tech Early Start funds the courses in high school, and Southeastern then pays a $1,000 completion award to students who arrive with 15 or more hours.

If you live just across the state line

TOPS is for Louisiana residents at Louisiana schools, so it does not travel. But several Louisiana publics discount nonresident tuition heavily, which matters for families in southern Arkansas, southern Mississippi, and east Texas:

• ULM publishes an Out-of-State Warhawk Waiver worth $12,100 a year at a 21 ACT with a 3.00, which is one of the largest nonresident waivers in the region.
• Northwestern State grants an Out-of-State Fee Exemption at a 21 ACT with a 2.25 GPA, an unusually low bar.
• Louisiana Tech runs the Bulldog Out-of-State Scholarship from a 23 ACT with a 2.50, and Southern waives out-of-state fees from a 24 with a 2.75.
• Grambling attaches an out-of-state tuition waiver to its automatic academic awards.

Reading this from the other side of a border? See our Mississippi guide, Arkansas guide, and Tennessee guide, or compare by transcript with Scholarships by GPA.

Smaller Louisiana Programs Worth Checking

These are narrow, and that is exactly why they go unclaimed. If one describes your family, it is worth a phone call.

Louisiana State Aid FAQs

Do you need a 20 ACT for TOPS in Louisiana?

For the TOPS Opportunity Award, yes. The requirement is written as the prior year’s Louisiana state average but never less than 20, and it is currently 20. There is a lower door: TOPS Tech takes a 17 ACT, or an ACT WorkKeys score at the Silver level instead of a composite. Every level also requires the 19 core units and a minimum core GPA, so the score alone is not enough on its own.

What GPA do you need for TOPS?

A 2.50 for Opportunity and for TOPS Tech, a 3.25 for Performance, and a 3.50 for both Honors and Excellence. Those are core GPAs, calculated only on the 19 TOPS core curriculum courses, not the GPA printed on the report card. The Performance and Honors requirements rose with the graduating class of 2022, so older handouts that say 3.00 are wrong.

Does TOPS accept superscores?

No. LOSFA requires a composite score from a single test sitting and states on every award page that TOPS does not accept ACT superscores. Several Louisiana colleges do superscore for their own scholarships, including ULM, Southeastern, UNO, and Tulane, so a student can hold a higher score for admission and a lower one for the state at the same time. Neither number is a mistake.

Does TOPS cover housing?

No. The Opportunity, Performance, and Honors awards pay a tuition amount tied to what that campus charged in 2016–2017. The Excellence award reaches tuition and mandatory fees, capped at $12,000 at a public and $8,500 at a LAICU private. None of them touch housing, meals, books, or transportation. For most Louisiana families, housing is the largest remaining line on the bill, which is why the college’s own scholarship matters more than the state’s.

How much is the TOPS Excellence Award?

Tuition and mandatory fees, or $12,000, whichever is less, at a Louisiana public institution. At a college in the Louisiana Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, it is tuition and fees or $8,500, whichever is less. Excellence was created by Act 347 of the 2025 Regular Session and applies to students who graduated from high school in 2024–2025 or later. It requires a 3.50 core GPA and a 31 ACT.

Can you lose TOPS?

Yes, and the fastest ways are procedural rather than academic. Failing to be enrolled full time as of the 15th class day, breaking continuous enrollment, or failing to earn 24 credit hours in the TOPS academic year all result in cancellation, which cannot be undone without an approved Request for Exception. A GPA shortfall is gentler: a Performance, Honors, or Excellence student who drops below a 3.00 but stays at or above a 2.30 with 24 to 47 hours, or a 2.50 with 48 or more, keeps the award as an Opportunity Award without the stipend. Below that it is suspended and can be reinstated if the GPA is regained within 24 months.

Can you get TOPS and the M.J. Foster Promise Program at the same time?

No. The M.J. Foster Promise award cannot be used together with TOPS. Foster pays $3,200 per award year for a full-time student, up to $6,400 total over three years, for credentials in high-demand fields, and it is aimed at adult students rather than students coming straight out of high school. Since TOPS requires first-time full-time enrollment within a year of high school graduation, most people are realistically eligible for one or the other, not both.

What is the TOPS deadline for 2026–2027?

July 1 is the date to have the FAFSA or the TOPS Online Application on file. But the deadline that changes the size of the award is earlier: a qualifying ACT score must be earned by the April national test day, or the award is reduced by one semester. For the SAT it is the March national test day. LOSFA begins processing eligibility in June and sends award letters by email and through the Student Hub, usually in late June or early July.