University of San Diego Scholarship Calculator

Enter your LSAT and GPA to see where you stand against University of San Diego's admitted class and the grant range it actually publishes.

University of San Diego reports a median grant of $32,000 per year for students receiving financial aid, and 91% of its students receive aid, with 3% of aid recipients covering full tuition or more. The median award covers about 48% of annual tuition, so the school still costs roughly $34,950 per year in tuition after aid.

What three years would actually cost you

At University of San Diego, three years of tuition, housing and fees cost $320,844 before aid. A grant of $27,375 to $50,000 a year would leave you paying between $170,844 and $238,719 over three years. The lower figure assumes the larger award applies every year, so treat it as a floor rather than a bill.

The net figure applies this school's median award to every year and every student, so it is a floor rather than a bill — it excludes students who receive nothing, tuition increases, and living costs beyond what this school publishes. See the full cost breakdown →

Is this school worth your score?

University of San Diego sits in the 61st percentile of law schools by median LSAT but the 72nd percentile by median grant, so it gives more aid than its selectivity suggests. Among the 164 schools with both figures reported, that is a gap of 11 percentile points.

Selectivity and generosity are two different things. A school can sit high on one and low on the other — and that gap is the part worth knowing before you decide where to apply.

The comparison set is the 164 schools that report an annual tuition figure and a median grant. Schools reporting tuition per credit hour are excluded because there is no annual aid figure to line up against. Percentiles are rank positions, not estimates.

Where this school sits against the extremes

The most and least generous schools relative to their own selectivity, for reference:

What you get for what you pay

University of San Diego costs about $224,844 over three years after its median grant, and 88.6% of its 236 graduates went to a firm that requires bar passage, with 17.4% landing at a firm with 251 or more lawyers. That is 3.94 percentage points of bar-required employment for every $10,000 of net cost. These are the school's own reported figures for one class, not a forecast of what an individual graduate will get.

This school is one of the 20 law school pages with measurable search traffic, so the analysis below goes deeper than the standard breakdown: how its aid compares with schools at the same selectivity level, where it sits against the most and least generous schools in the country, and what its own class of graduates went on to do.

These are one class's reported outcomes, not a forecast. Employment figures depend on the year, the market and what graduates choose to report. See the full employment breakdown →

Conditional scholarships at University of San Diego

University of San Diego gave conditional scholarships to 234 students in 2024, and 89% kept the award after review — 25 students had it reduced.

Conditional scholarships are awarded on need but have to be re-earned every year. If you drop below the GPA threshold, the award can be cut — this is the school's own reported figure, not an estimate. See the retention data for every school →

Is University of San Diego keeping more conditional scholarships?

Between 2022 and 2024, University of San Diego has been keeping more of them: the share of conditional scholars who kept their award moved from 80.5% to 89.3%, with 234 students entering with a conditional award in 2024.

Is University of San Diego getting more competitive?

Applications to University of San Diego rose from 3,287 for the 2015 entering class to 4,241 for 2025, while the class enrolled 239 students — so there were 17.7 applicants per place, against 12.6 in 2015. Between 2023 and 2025 that figure moved from 14.4 to 17.7, and competition for each place has tightened.

Applicants per place is applications divided by the number who actually enrolled. It moves with how selective the school is, not with how many offers it sends — a school can issue more offers without becoming harder to get into. The summary above judges the direction over the three most recent entering classes, not across the whole span: a single unusual year in the middle of eleven is not a trend.

How University of San Diego compares to schools at the same level

These are the schools with the closest median LSAT to University of San Diego's. The table sorts by median grant, because that is usually what the comparison turns on once the academic profile is close enough — and the three-year net cost column shows what each of those grants actually leaves you paying.

Applicants per place is applications divided by students who enrolled. The competition column compares the most recent three entering classes rather than the full span, because a single year in the middle of that span is not a trend. Conditional retention is the share of students who kept a need-based conditional scholarship after year one review.

What this school's numbers mean

University of San Diego is in . It admits 23.5% of applicants, and 91% of its students receive financial aid.

The four tiers above come straight from the school's 509 disclosure. They matter because the same coverage figure can mean very different things — a school where most awards are half-tuition grants and one where most are full-tuition grants offer students something quite different.

Related pages

• University of San Diego financial aid breakdown — coverage, award size, all four tiers and conditional outcomes
• University of San Diego ABA 509 report — every figure from the disclosure, section by section
• University of San Diego cost of attendance — three-year total cost, ranked against every school
• University of San Diego admissions data — acceptance, LSAT, GPA, bar passage and class size
• All-school scholarship estimator — compare every ABA law school at once