The Florida Bright Futures Scholarship is a merit award based on high school academic achievement. Students may receive either the Florida Academic Scholars Award or Florida Medallion Scholars Award at the University of Central Florida.
This is the most competitive Bright Futures scholarship and the most generous one. Florida Academic Scholar (FAS) recipients may receive funding for up to five years from high school graduation for a maximum of 120 semester hours toward the completion of a first baccalaureate degree. The Florida Academic Scholar with the highest academic ranking in each county will also receive the Academic Top Scholars Award.
The Florida Academic Scholars will receive an award amount equal to 100% of tuition and applicable fees. Applicable fees include: activity and service fee, health fee, athletic fee, financial aid fee, capital improvement fee, campus access/transportation fee, technology fee and tuition differential fee.
The Florida Academic Scholars Award is $212.28 per credit hour.
The Academic Top Scholars Award is $44 per credit hour.
#___ of credit hours enrolled X $212.28 = $ ___ FAS award amount
Yes. A FAS scholarship recipient who qualifies for one semester of graduate study funding may have the one semester be the summer term.
The award amount will be calculated based on the undergraduate tuition rate of $212.28.
Applicable fees include activity and service fees, health fees, athletic fees, financial aid fees, capital improvement fees, transportation fees (SUS only), technology fees and tuition differential fees.
Academic Scholars will receive an award equal to 100% of tuition and applicable fees. The tuition and applicable fees for 1 credit hour is $212.28.
This scholarship is less competitive than the FAS, but it still has relatively high minimum test score and GPA requirements. Florida Medallion Scholar (FMS) recipients may receive funding for up to five years from high school graduation for a maximum of 120 semester hours toward the completion of a first baccalaureate degree.
Florida Medallion Scholars will receive an award amount equal to 75% of tuition and applicable fall, spring and summer fees. Applicable fees include activity and service fee, health fee, athletic fee, financial aid fee, capital improvement fee, campus access/transportation fee, technology fee and tuition differential fee.
The Florida Medallion Scholars Award is $159.21 per credit hour.
A student must be enrolled in at least 6 credit hours in order to receive Bright Futures funding for each term.
Medallion Scholars will receive an award amount equal to 75% of tuition and applicable fees. The tuition and applicable fees for 1 credit hour is $159.21.
($212.28 X 75% = $159.21 the current rate for Medallion Scholars)
Applicable fees include activity and service fees, health fees, athletic fees, financial aid fees, capital improvement fees, transportation access fees, technology fees and tuition differential fees.
Yes. Students will be disbursed an award if enrolled with a minimum of 6 credit hours.
#____of credit hours enrolled x $159.21= $____FMS award amount.
UCF will include approved transient enrollment hours in Bright Futures awards according to the per credit hour award amount for the type of institution attended. Students must complete the transient enrollment process to include transient hours.
For more information, visit our Transient Enrollment page.
Eligibility and application criteria are available from your high school guidance office, or the Florida Bright Futures Program website.
Students are not required to submit a FAFSA in order to receive both initial and renewal Bright Futures eligibility. Students are encouraged to submit the FAFSA to learn of potential eligibility for additional state and federal aid.
Note: Gold Seal (Cape/or Vocational) Scholarships are not offered at UCF as we are a postsecondary institution specialized in degree programs.
Each award has different academic criteria for eligibility and provides a different award amount and/or number of semester hours. Below are general requirements that apply to both Bright Futures awards. In order to qualify for one of these awards, you must:
If you meet all of the above requirements, you’re on the right track to getting your own Florida Bright Futures awards.
Students with less than 6 credit hours required for graduation, may receive FAS and FMS by submitting a memo on letterhead from an student success coach indicating:
Use the Document and File Uploader tool and select the routing option: Graduation Memo.
Graduate level hours may be approved by the student’s student success coach if they are required for the completion of the degree. Courses will be paid as an undergraduate rate. Students taking graduate-level courses must submit a memo from the student success coach indicating:
Use the Document and File Uploader tool and select the routing option: Bright Futures / Benacquisto Scholarships.
Students must apply for the scholarship by submitting the Florida Financial Aid Application (FFAA) no later than August 31 after high school graduation.
NOTE: In order to receive the Bright Futures Scholarship award, your post-secondary institution selection on the Initial Student Florida Financial Aid Application (FFAA) must be stated as “University of Central Florida.” If you have selected another institution on the FFAA and you are planning to attend UCF, you must update your institution name selection to reflect “UCF”. To update your post-secondary institution name, you may visit the Florida Department of Education, Office of Student Financial Assistant (OSFA) website or call 1-888-827-2004. Also, if you were assigned a Pseudo number (PSI) which begins with either P00 or P04 by the Florida Department of Education, Office of Student Financial Assistant (OSFA), please send an email to our office at finaid@ucf.edu with the subject line : “Pseudo Number Bright Futures” and make sure to include the Pseudo number that was assigned to you, along with your UCFID. Once we update our records, we will be able to pull your data from the Master Eligibility List (MEL) and package the award.
The Bright Futures Scholarship allows Bright Futures Florida Academic Scholars (FAS) and Bright Futures Florida Medallion Scholars (FMS) students to receive award funding during summer terms.
FAS students will receive an award that covers 100% of tuition and applicable fees for the summer term.
FMS students will receive an award that covers 75% of tuition and fees.
In order to receive summer funding, FAS and FMS students:
Yes. The 2023-24 academic year includes the summer 2023 term. Any FAS or FMS student eligible for 2023-24 may receive summer funding, provided the student meets all enrollment criteria.
Florida Bright Futures Scholars enrolled less than half time may only be funded if they are enrolled in the remaining courses to finish their degree (a memo from an student success coach must be submitted) or if they are being disbursed the last remaining hours of Bright Futures eligibility.
Yes. Florida Bright Futures Scholars who meet graduate funding requirements, may use the summer as the one semester of graduate study funding. If the student does not wish to be funded for the summer term, please send an email to finaid@ucf.edu to request it in writing.
Yes. Grade and hours information will be reported for all students funded during the summer. If a student took transient hours, the grades and hours earned at the other institution must be reported to UCF by August 12 in order to be reported systematically. After this date, students would have to complete the Bright Futures Renewal Re-Evaluation Form in order for the grades and hours to be reported to OSFA.
If a student has an opportunity to restore the Bright Futures award, the grades from the summer term may be used to meet restoration requirements. UCF will report these hours systematically and the student will not have to apply for restoration.
