University of North Florida 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: $10,353 — 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

Most public universities raise tuition a little every year. Florida has not. UNF’s published in-state tuition and fees for 2026-2027 are identical to 2025-2026, at $6,390 for 30 credit hours, because the Florida Legislature has held base undergraduate resident tuition flat for over a decade. For in-state families budgeting four years, it is reasonable to plan on the tuition line staying roughly where it is. Housing and food are the pieces that actually drift upward.

We found a real discrepancy and we would rather show it to you than pick a side quietly.

• UNF’s Financial Aid cost-of-attendance page and its Common Data Set, both last updated in spring 2026, list non-resident tuition and fees at $20,790 for 30 credit hours, or $693.11 per credit.
• UNF’s Controller’s tuition and fee schedule, updated in July 2026 and explicitly labeled Fall 2026 / Spring 2027, lists non-residents at $765.14 per credit. Over 30 credits that is about $22,954.

That is a gap of roughly $2,160 a year. In-state rates match perfectly across all three sources, so this is specific to the out-of-state fee. The table above uses UNF’s official cost-of-attendance figure, because that is the number the federal net price calculation is built on.

Why this matters beyond the table: UNF’s waiver examples show a First Coast waiver bringing a non-resident down to about $7,075, essentially in-state pricing. That math assumes the older, lower out-of-state rate. If the newer per-credit schedule is the operative one, a fixed $14,000 waiver no longer closes the whole gap. If your student is a non-resident, call Student Financial Services and ask them to confirm the actual 2027-2028 non-resident rate in writing before you build a budget on it.

📅 UNF Scholarship Timeline (Simple Version)

• July 1: UNF’s own application opens. The Common App opens August 1.
• Mid-September: Early round decisions release, and the Hicks Honors application opens the same week.
• Mid-November: Priority application deadline. Decisions release about three weeks later.
• January 15: The scholarship priority date. Everything has to be in: application, transcripts, and test scores.
• Early April: Final application deadline, Honors commitment deadline, then the May 1 deposit.

Parent rule of thumb: the application deadline and the money deadline are two different dates at UNF, and the money one comes first. Aim at the November priority round, not the April final one.

🧠 The Thing Nobody Tells You: UNF’s Grid Has Two Lanes

Look closely at the Florida resident awards and something odd jumps out. They are not ranked by GPA. They are two separate ladders.

A student with a 3.7 GPA and a 1200 SAT gets $3,000. A student with a 4.5 GPA and a 1060 SAT gets $2,000. The lower-GPA kid wins, because the test lane pays better than the GPA lane at every comparable rung.

What to do with that: if your student is sitting on a big weighted GPA and a modest test score, the entire gap between $1,000 and $5,000 is on the test side. Roughly 130 SAT points is the difference between Silver and Platinum. Given that UNF superscores and lets you resubmit scores through January 15, that is one of the most concrete returns on a Saturday morning you will find anywhere in this database.

📊 Reality Check: Admitted vs Enrolled

UNF publishes two different sets of numbers, and comparing them is genuinely useful.

• Admitted students, Fall 2026: GPA 3.96 to 4.51, SAT 1090 to 1280, ACT 23 to 29.
• Enrolled students, Fall 2025: average GPA 3.94, SAT 1010 to 1230, ACT 19 to 25.

Admitted students score noticeably higher than the students who actually show up. UNF admits about 68% of applicants but only about one in five admitted students enrolls. In plain terms, UNF’s strongest admits are taking offers elsewhere.

That is good news for your family. It means the merit thresholds on this page are reachable for a solid, normal student, not just the top of the class. A 3.7 with a 1200 sits inside the enrolled range and still collects $3,000 a year.

🌴 Summer Start: UNF’s Quieter Side Door

UNF admits freshmen for summer as well as fall, and the summer bar is dramatically lower. Summer 2026 admitted midranges were a 3.24 to 3.70 GPA with a 940 to 1110 SAT, against fall’s 3.96 to 4.51 and 1090 to 1280.

Here is the part that matters: the merit grid covers students starting in summer or fall. A student who would be a reach for fall may be comfortably admissible for summer and still be reviewed against the same scholarship table. UNF does not advertise this as a strategy and we would not promise it works for any individual student, but if your child is on the bubble it is worth asking an admissions counselor about directly.

🎓 The Exception: UNF’s National Merit Package

If UNF has a flagship award, this is it, and it is aggressive. National Merit Finalists who name UNF as their number one choice with the National Merit Scholarship Corporation by May 1 receive full cost of attendance for four years. Florida residents also need to qualify as a Bright Futures Academic Scholar.

UNF estimates the package at up to $24,797 per year for Florida residents, about $99,188 over four years, and up to $39,197 per year for non-residents, about $156,788 over four years.

And it comes with things money does not usually buy:

• Guaranteed admission to the Hicks Honors College, plus a one-time study abroad scholarship and an academic mentor through Honors
• First-choice housing in Osprey Ridge, the new Honors residence hall
• Priority class registration, which over four years is worth more than parents expect
• A guaranteed paid summer internship each summer, up to three. One is in undergraduate research. The other two can be research or corporate placements, with UNF naming partners including Mayo Clinic, CSX, Johnson & Johnson, Florida Blue, Brooks Rehabilitation, Crowley Maritime, Landstar, and Fidelity
• Pre-med students also receive $1,700 toward MCAT testing costs

Note how UNF builds this: they stack an in-state tuition waiver, an out-of-state waiver for non-residents, the President’s Platinum, Bright Futures for Florida students, and additional Enrollment Services scholarships until the package reaches full cost of attendance. It is already fully stacked internally. Nothing goes on top, and total aid is capped at cost of attendance.

❓ Flagship / Competitive Scholarship FAQs

Is there really no competitive scholarship at UNF?
Not in the traditional sense. There is no centralized competition with essays, interviews, or a finalist event. The closest thing is the National Merit package, and that is not a competition UNF runs. Your student qualifies through the PSAT and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, then simply names UNF first by May 1.

Then where do essays and recommendations matter at UNF?
After admission, not before it. The Hicks Honors College application takes optional letters of recommendation. Several Honors awards, including the Fellows Awards and the Marnie Jones Scholarship, require written proposals or applications. A number of ScholarshipUniverse awards ask for essays. So the writing skills are not wasted, they just get used in year one instead of senior year of high school.

Does UNF have Early Decision or Early Action?
No to both, and there is no waitlist either. UNF has a non-binding early application round with a September deadline, then priority, standard, and final rounds. Applying early gets a faster answer and better position for scholarships and housing, but it never binds you.

Is UNF a Stamps or QuestBridge partner?
No to both.

How much merit money does UNF actually give out?
In a recent year UNF awarded about $6.2 million in non-need-based institutional scholarships and grants. The average non-need institutional award to a first-year student with no financial need was roughly $3,162, which lines up almost exactly with the President’s Silver and Gold tiers. That is the honest center of gravity here. UNF is a low-sticker school that gives moderate merit, not a high-sticker school that gives dramatic discounts.

What should a strong applicant do instead?
Two things. Push the test score into a higher grid tier, because that is where the largest controllable dollars are. Then apply to the Hicks Honors College, which is UNF’s actual selective pathway and the gateway to research funding, study abroad money, and the Office of Fellowships.

🧠 Parent Strategy: UNF’s Money Is Mostly Zip-Code Money

Here is the pattern once you line up UNF’s need-based awards. Three of the biggest ones are gated by where your student went to high school, not by anything they did.

• Jacksonville Commitment: Duval County public high school graduates. About $24,000 over four years.
• Community Engagement Scholarship: graduates of high schools in Duval, Clay, Nassau, St. Johns, Putnam, or Flagler counties. Up to $2,000 a year for four years.
• Osprey Access: graduates of designated Florida T-1 high schools. Up to $3,000 a year for four years.

Parent translation: if you live in Northeast Florida and your student is Pell eligible, UNF is a meaningfully cheaper school for you than it is for a family two counties away with identical finances. All three require the FAFSA and a complete admission file by January 15, and none of them require a separate scholarship application. You just have to be in the door on time.

🔬 Brand New for 2026-2027: The Schilling STEM Scholarship

This one launched for the 2026-2027 aid year, funded by a gift from Dr. Paul J. Schilling, and almost nobody knows about it yet. It pays up to $5,000 a year, split $2,500 in fall and $2,500 in spring, and renews for up to eight semesters.

Two things make it genuinely different from everything else at UNF:

• There is no test score requirement. Not one. Every single award on UNF’s merit grid gates on the SAT, ACT, or CLT. This is the only meaningful UNF scholarship we found that does not. If your student has strong grades and a test score that never quite came together, this is their opening.
• The GPA bar is low. It asks for a 3.3, either high school or transfer. UNF’s admitted students run a 3.96 to 4.51 midrange, which means essentially every admitted STEM student already clears it.

So what actually decides it? The FAFSA. The award requires demonstrated financial need plus Florida residency for tuition purposes, U.S. citizenship or lawful permanent resident status, and full-time enrollment in a STEM major. Within the pool of students who qualify, UNF gives priority to the highest GPAs. Think of it as need-gated but merit-ranked.

There is no application. Admitted students are considered automatically. Recipients need 12 credit hours each in fall and spring, at least 24 credits per academic year, a 3.3 cumulative GPA, and a fresh FAFSA every year.

One honest unknown: UNF has not published whether the Schilling can be held alongside a President’s or Provost’s award, and UNF’s general rule is one institutional scholarship per student. We have listed it as not stackable to match that rule. If your student qualifies for both, email unfscholarships@unf.edu and get the answer in writing before you build a budget on it.

🚶 The Strangest One: A Scholarship for Showing Up

The Rising Scholars Osprey Test Prep Scholarship is unlike anything else in our database. There is no application. There is a checklist of things your student has to physically do:

1. Attend a free UNF test preparation session
2. Register for and attend a guided campus tour in person. UNF states plainly that virtual tours do not count
3. Apply and be admitted as a first-time-in-college freshman
4. Sit in on a UNF financial aid workshop at the high school, or a UNF-sponsored event with a financial aid component
5. File the FAFSA showing Pell eligibility and unmet need

Complete all five and it is worth up to $1,000, paid $500 in fall and $500 in spring. Non-renewable, and awarded on a funds-available basis, so qualifying does not guarantee an offer.

What UNF is really doing is paying families to engage early. Every item on that list is something admissions counselors wish parents did anyway. If you are already driving to Jacksonville for a tour, do the other four while you are at it.

🔁 Transferring In? Pick the Right One.

UNF has two transfer awards with nearly identical requirements and very different lifespans. Both want an A.A. degree from a Florida State College institution and a minimum 3.0 transfer GPA, with priority at 3.5 or higher.

• SWOOP Transfer Scholarship: $3,000 a year for up to two years.
• ES Need-Based Transfer Scholarship: $3,000 a year for up to three years, but it additionally requires a FAFSA and Pell eligibility.

That third year is worth $3,000. If your student is Pell eligible, get the FAFSA filed and make sure the ES award is on the table. And note the transfer priority date is January 15 for these two, while the non-resident transfer waivers use April 15. Two different calendars in the same office.

🎟️ Buy One, Get One: The Strategic Emphasis Waiver

This is not a dollar scholarship, which is exactly why families miss it. Florida lets students in selected majors take two upper-division courses for the tuition cost of one. At UNF the eligible programs include Accounting, Finance, Information Technology, Information Systems, Mathematics, Elementary Education, Special Education, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Computer and Information Sciences with a Data Science concentration.

To qualify your student must be a Florida resident for tuition purposes, earn at least 60 credit hours toward a first bachelor’s degree within two academic years of first enrolling at a Florida public institution, take courses required for the degree, and not already be covered by another statutory waiver. Florida allows one statutory waiver per student.

How to actually get it: after admission, email records@unf.edu. Nobody will offer it to you. For a student carrying a heavy junior and senior year load in one of those majors, it is real money that never appears in an award letter.

❓ Hidden Gems FAQ

Do these stack with UNF merit awards?
Mostly yes, and this is the key difference from Section 3. UNF’s “one institutional scholarship” rule bites hardest on the merit grid. Need-based grants, state programs like First Generation and the Johnson Scholarship, departmental awards, and outside scholarships generally layer up to the cost of attendance. Your award letter is the final word, so read it and ask One-Stop Student Services if anything looks like it replaced something else.

What is ScholarshipUniverse and does my student have to use it?
It is UNF’s matching platform, and yes, they should. Once admitted, your student logs in at unf.scholarshipuniverse.com with their myWings credentials. It matches them automatically against UNF internal scholarships using their major, GPA, and class standing. Many internal awards need no separate application at all. Answering the extra matching questions unlocks more, particularly external scholarships. This is where the Honors awards, the AAFSA Scholarship, and departmental money live.

My student is undecided on a major. Does that hurt?
A little, in ScholarshipUniverse specifically, because it matches partly on major. It does not affect the automatic merit grid at all. Once a major is declared the matching gets noticeably better, which is a reason to revisit the platform every semester rather than treating it as a one-time task.

If there is no deadline listed, when should we check?
Depends on the type. Need-based freshman awards run on the January 15 priority date. ScholarshipUniverse awards and Honors awards are largely rolling. Undergraduate research grants have three fixed cycles a year, in October, February, and July. Music awards follow the audition calendar, typically in the spring. Army ROTC runs on national board dates in October, January, and March.

Can current UNF students get these?
Many of them, yes. The undergraduate research grants, music awards, AAFSA, Johnson, and the Strategic Emphasis Waiver are all aimed at students already enrolled. This is worth revisiting each year rather than assuming freshman year settled the question.

How will we know if we won something?
UNF emails the student’s UNF account, not the parent. Make sure your student sets up myWings and their UNF email early and actually checks it. Award notifications, scholarship agreements, and renewal warnings all go there.

• There is a fee. Hicks charges a one-time Honors Experiential Learning Fee of $150 at the start of the first Honors semester, or $75 for transfer students. It funds Honors experiences through graduation, and students may ask to opt out. Nobody mentions this on a campus tour.
• No deferring. Hicks does not accept delayed admissions. Fall first-time-in-college students must take part in the Honors fall Retreat and Colloquium. If your student cannot be on campus for those, they cannot start in Honors that term.

💡 How Honors Money Actually Works Here

Do not think of these as scholarships that arrive with an admission letter. Think of them as a funding pool your student applies into once they are on campus, mostly through ScholarshipUniverse and the Symposium Canvas page.

• Fellows Awards fund a specific project: faculty-mentored research, conference travel to present, a career-focused internship, or Honors in the Major work. Your student writes a proposal.
• Study Abroad funding covers up to two semesters abroad through UNF programs or exchanges. A second trip requires a 3.20 UNF institutional GPA. Hicks asks students to apply for outside awards first, naming Gilman for Pell-eligible students, Phi Kappa Phi at a 3.75 GPA, and Freeman-ASIA for students heading to Asia.
• The Hicks Merit Scholarship has no application at all. The Dean awards it at their discretion for meritorious achievement. The only way to be considered is to be visible: research, Symposium participation, faculty relationships.
• Vulcan Materials requires a FAFSA and a listed major, with stated preference for Coastal Environmental Science or Coastal and Port Engineering. Registering in ScholarshipUniverse is enough to be considered.

Unlike UNF’s merit grid, these Honors awards do stack with your student’s automatic scholarship, Bright Futures, and outside aid, up to the cost of attendance. For a student in Honors, that is where the second layer of money comes from.

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