Which Law Schools Offer Conditional Scholarships — and What They Cost to Maintain
60 of 196 schools offer conditional scholarships, and their median tuition is under $50,000. The median award is $22,000, tied to a GPA condition you must keep.
A conditional scholarship is awarded on the assumption that you will meet an academic standard you have not yet demonstrated. Keep the GPA and the aid continues; fall below it and the award is reduced or withdrawn. Roughly a third of ABA law schools offer them, and they are concentrated in a specific and identifiable group.
The mechanism is covered separately. This article is about which schools offer them and what the pattern reveals.
What the ABA data does and does not include
The disclosures record whether a school offers conditional scholarships and how many students received one. They do not record how many lost it, what the GPA threshold was, or whether the award was reduced or cancelled outright. Every school-level loss rate published elsewhere is a school-reported figure with its own methodology. Read the numbers below as distribution, not as a retention rate.
How common
Sixty of 196 schools report offering conditional scholarships — 31 percent of the profession. The remaining 136 report none.
| Offer conditional scholarships | Do not | |
|---|---|---|
| Schools | 60 | 136 |
| Median tuition | $49,500 | $50,320 |
| Median grant awarded | $22,000 | $25,000 |
| Share of students receiving grant aid | 77% | 87% |
| Median acceptance rate | 44.0% | 30.7% |
| Median LSAT | 155 | 161 |
ABA Standard 509, 2025 cycle. Medians computed within each group across schools reporting each figure.
The pattern in one line
Conditional scholarships cluster at less selective, cheaper public schools. The median school offering them admits 44 percent of applicants and enrolls a median 155; the median school not offering them admits 31 percent and enrolls a 161.
What this is actually substituting for
The tuition difference between the two groups is almost nil — $49,500 against $50,320. That is the important finding, because it rules out the obvious explanation.
A school offering conditional scholarships is not cheaper. What it does differently is how it distributes aid: the median grant is $22,000 against $25,000 elsewhere, and grant participation is lower at 77 percent against 87 percent. In other words, these schools reach further down the class and attach a performance condition to the award rather than pricing it out for the rest of the cohort.
- Southern University offers conditional scholarships at $11,338 tuition, but only 20 percent of students receive any grant aid.
- Arkansas at Little Rock offers them at $13,770 with 60 percent grant participation.
- Brigham Young University pairs a 98 percent grant participation rate with conditional offers — the coverage is high enough that the conditional structure is a minority layer rather than the foundation.
- Inter American University of Puerto Rico offers them at $16,585, with grant aid reaching 8 percent of students.
The ones worth reading carefully
A school that awards conditional scholarships to 60 percent of its aid recipients and one that awards them to 8 percent are using the same label for very different things. The percentage of students receiving aid alongside the conditional flag tells you which kind it is — a minority supplement or the main mechanism.
Which schools to look at
The ten lowest-tuition schools reporting conditional scholarships, since the pattern is strongest at public flagships.
| School | Tuition | Grant participation | Admit rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southern University | $11,338 | 20% | 56.6% |
| South Dakota, University of | $12,076 | 55% | 62.6% |
| Arkansas at Little Rock, University of | $13,770 | 60% | 54.9% |
| Brigham Young University | $15,992 | 98% | 22.8% |
| Georgia State University | $16,162 | 49% | 30.6% |
| Inter American University of Puerto Rico | $16,585 | 8% | 50.9% |
| Memphis, The University of | $18,634 | 62% | 41.1% |
| Texas Southern University | $19,202 | 51% | 33.1% |
| New Mexico, The University of | $19,474 | 60% | 41.4% |
| Louisiana State University | $19,750 | 78% | 38.6% |
ABA Standard 509, 2025 cycle. Grant participation is the share of full-time students receiving any grant aid.
If you hold one
- Get the actual terms before accepting
The GPA threshold, the number of semesters it applies to, and what happens at exactly the threshold are school-specific and not published in the disclosures. A '2.5 GPA' condition and a '3.0 GPA' condition are very different commitments, and partial reduction is common rather than all-or-nothing.
- Ask whether it stacks
Some conditional awards replace part of your need-based grant; others are separate merit awards on top. If they are separate, losing the conditional one may not affect your need-based award — but only the financial aid office can confirm that.
- Treat the first semester as the risk point
Most reported losses occur after the first grading period, when the standard stops being hypothetical. If your preparation habits are not already built, a conditional award is a bet against your own record in a year you cannot re-take.
- Do the arithmetic on the reduced award
If a school reduces awards rather than cancelling them, ask what the floor is. A $22,000 award reduced to $12,000 is a different decision from one cancelled outright, and the difference between those outcomes is not in any public data.
Our scholarship-adjusted cost ranking compares these schools on what students actually pay after aid, which is the number a conditional award ultimately changes.
Questions we get asked
How many law schools offer conditional scholarships?
Sixty of the 196 ABA-approved law schools reported offering conditional scholarships in the 2025 disclosures — about 31 percent. The other 136 report none. They cluster at public schools: the median school offering them charges $49,500 and admits 44 percent of applicants, against a $50,320 tuition and 30.7 percent admit rate at schools that do not.
Are conditional scholarships better or worse than need-based aid?
Neither — they are different instruments. Need-based aid is priced against your circumstances; a conditional award is a merit bet that you will hit a GPA standard. Holding one means your aid depends on your academic performance in a way that need-based aid does not, which is worth considering alongside how confident you are in your grades.
What happens if I fall below the GPA requirement?
It depends on the school. Common outcomes are a reduced award, a one-semester probation period, or cancellation. The ABA disclosures record that a school offers conditional scholarships but not the threshold, the reduction schedule, or the loss rate, so you need to ask the financial aid office directly.
Do international students receive conditional scholarships?
Typically yes — these are merit awards rather than need-based aid, so citizenship does not usually disqualify you. But international applicants are ineligible for federal aid, which narrows the total pool available. Each school's page here shows grant participation, and our guide to international applicants covers the structural differences.
How much does the LSAT cost, and can I take it more than once?
Registration is $253 for the 2026–2027 testing year and includes LSAT Argumentative Writing. LSAC limits sittings to five within the current reportable score period and seven over a lifetime, with no per-year cap; cancelled scores count toward both limits. Need-based fee waivers cover registration for eligible applicants, and a Tier 1 waiver can cover up to two LSATs within the waiver period.
All figures come from the ABA Standard 509 Required Disclosures for the 2025 reporting cycle and describe the fall 2025 entering class. The disclosures record whether conditional scholarships are offered and how many students hold one; they do not record GPA thresholds, reduction terms, or loss rates, which are school-reported and vary in methodology. Confirm current terms with each school. This article is educational and is not financial or admissions advice.
Sources
- ABA Standard 509 Required Disclosures, 2025 reporting cycle — conditional scholarship disclosure flag, tuition, and grant data for 196 ABA-approved law schools
Figures reflect the most recent published data available as of October 28, 2026. Always confirm current policy on lsat.lsac.org.