WELCOME
UMBC offers competitive merit scholarships to incoming First-Year Students, Transfer Students and International Students. Additional scholarship opportunities for incoming and current students may be found in Scholarship Retriever.
Prospective Student Timelines
Fall 2025 First-Year Students:
Fall 2025 First-Year Scholarship awarding has been completed. We encourage you to consider applying to the Fall 2026 semester for Scholarship consideration.
Fall 2026 First-Year Students:
- Apply for admission by November 1st, 2025 for automatic merit scholarship consideration!
- Students interested in Scholar Programs must apply to programs separately by January 15th, 2026.
- Once you have a campus ID, complete your General Application on Scholarship Retriever and continue applying to new opportunities!
Fall 2025 Transfer Students:
Fall 2025 Transfer Scholarship awarding has been completed. We encourage you to consider applying to the Spring 2026 or Fall 2026 semesters for Transfer Scholarship consideration.
Spring 2026 Transfer Students:
- Apply for admission by October 15th, 2025 for automatic transfer merit scholarship consideration!
- Students interested in Scholar Programs must apply to programs separately.
- Once you have a campus ID, complete your General Application on Scholarship Retriever and continue applying to new opportunities!
How much does it cost?
For the best estimate of the charges you will be directly billed for throughout your time at UMBC, we recommend utilizing the Financial Aid Cost Calculator! This tool will allow you to better determine your expected Cost based on intended enrollment (12 or more credits is full-time for undergraduates, and the same price), residency, and housing. You will then be able to plug in expected aid to see your out of pocket cost. For questions please contact our Financial Aid unit.
To give students the opportunity to compare costs across institutions, our unit has created an Institutional Cost Comparison sheet, to assist you in determining your estimated out of pocket costs across different universities, and as you consider UMBC! We invite you to download or make your own copy of this resource to help you calculate expected charges. For questions on this sheet please contact our Scholarships unit. Note that this sheet uses the same figures as the Financial Aid Cost Calculator, and currently reflects expected charges for the 2025-2026 school year.
NEWS
Financial Aid Disbursement
Fall 2025 Financial Aid Disbursements
Fall billing statements begin posting by Student Business Services (SBS) August 1st. Any charges added after this date will appear on the next months billing statement. All charges included on the billing statement are due by the 20th of that month. You can find a full billing schedule as well as information on payment plans and refunds on the SBS website.
Financial aid for Fall 2025 disburses to student accounts weekly beginning August1 8th. Aid for part-time (less than 12 credits) undergraduate students begins to disburse after the add/drop date for the semester. You must pay any portion of your balance not covered by financial aid or a payment plan by the due date in order to avoid late fees.
Fall 2025 Scholarship Withdrawal Requests
Students who do not meet the enrollment requirements associated with their scholarship for any reason, without receiving permission from the Scholarship Review Committee, will have their scholarship discontinued. Prior to making any changes to their enrollment, scholars may request to withdraw from class(es) by submitting the Scholarship Withdrawal Request Form. For more information, please visit our Scholarship Withdrawal Request page.
The Fall 2025 Scholarship Withdrawal Request form will become available to complete August 27th, 2025, and closes November 5th, 2025.
If you are unsure of the enrollment requirements associated with your scholarship, you may contact our office for a copy of your scholarship agreement.
2025-2026 Athletic Scholarships
2025-2026 athletic scholarships awarded to student athletes with a signed NCAA Agreement will be posted to student accounts in August. For additional information, please contact Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance, Whitney Ames.
Frequently Asked Questions
Please visit our FAQ page to get answers to the most common questions you have regarding merit scholarships.
Scholarship Retriever
All UMBC students and applicants with a UMBC Campus ID may now submit a General Scholarship Application through Scholarship Retriever to be considered for Fall 2025 – Spring 2026 institutional scholarships.
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