June 17, 2026

Top Scholarships for Actuarial Science Students in 2026

Actuarial science student reviewing exam study materials and financial documents at a desk

Most people don't realize how expensive the road to actuarial credentials actually is. The Society of Actuaries charges $315 per preliminary exam sitting — and earning your first credential typically means passing four to seven of those exams. Add study materials (Coaching Actuaries and ACTEX prep packages run $200–$400 each per exam), and you're looking at $2,500 or more in out-of-pocket costs before you've landed your first full-time role. The scholarship landscape for actuarial science students is surprisingly rich, but most students only find half of what's actually available to them.

The Financial Case for Going After Every Dollar

Actuarial students carry a dual burden most STEM majors don't: standard tuition costs plus professional exam expenses that compound each year. That makes scholarship money worth more here than in most fields.

There's also a timing dynamic that's easy to miss. Students who pass exams early — sometimes as sophomores or juniors — are significantly more competitive for internships. But serious exam prep requires real study time. A student working 20 hours a week to cover living expenses has less bandwidth to grind through probability models. Scholarships that free up time and money have a compounding effect on career outcomes that's genuinely different from other disciplines.

The good news is that the actuarial profession's organizations invest more per student in scholarship support than most comparable STEM fields. Between the Actuarial Foundation, the Casualty Actuarial Society, and the Society of Actuaries, programs span high school through PhD-level study. Here's what's actually worth your attention.

Foundation-Backed Scholarships: Start Here

The Actuarial Foundation is the profession's primary philanthropic arm, and it runs the programs you should know first.

STEM Stars Actuarial Scholars Program is the flagship. High school seniors who are strong in math and committed to an actuarial career can win $20,000 — paid at $5,000 per year for up to four years. The 2026 application closed February 27, but the program opens each fall. What separates STEM Stars from a standard math scholarship is the career infrastructure attached to it: mentorship from working actuaries, internship pipelines, and professional networking. The money is real. The connections are arguably more valuable.

Stuart A. Robertson Memorial Scholarship targets undergrads specifically. Named after a contributor who helped shape the modern actuarial education framework, it awards between $2,500 and $10,000 annually. The 2026 deadline passed in April. Applications that win this one tend to combine strong academics with a specific narrative about property/casualty insurance as a career — not just "I like math and finance."

CAS and SOA Programs: The Profession Investing in Its Own Pipeline

Both major credentialing bodies have reasons to attract talent early. Their scholarship programs reflect that.

CAS Trust Scholarship awards $2,500 to $5,000 for the 2026-2027 academic year. To qualify, you must be a full-time student, hold CAS Student Central membership (free to join), and have passed at least one actuarial exam by March 31, 2026. Applications close January 31 and recipients hear back by May 31.

The property/casualty emphasis is intentional. The CAS is investing in candidates genuinely moving toward ACAS or FCAS designations — not just someone curious about risk. So your application should reflect actual interest in casualty topics: reserving, pricing, catastrophe modeling, reinsurance. Generic answers about loving numbers don't make the cut here.

James C. Hickman Scholar Program sits at the other end of the spectrum. This SOA program supports PhD candidates who intend to pursue academic careers teaching actuarial science in the US or Canada. The profession has a genuine shortage of qualified faculty — so competition for this award is lower than you might expect given its prestige.

For undergrads who don't qualify for Hickman, the SOA's most practical offering is discounted exam registration fees for full-time students and the Actuarial Exam Support Program, a joint initiative that helps financially constrained candidates with registration costs.

Diversity Scholarships: Better Odds Than You Think

Roughly 7% of credentialed actuaries identify as Black or Hispanic, compared to over 30% of the overall US workforce. Several programs exist specifically to change this — and because the applicant pools are smaller, your odds of winning are genuinely better than in a generic STEM scholarship pool.

Joint CAS/SOA Minority Scholarship (also called the Actuarial Diversity Scholarship) distributes about 30 awards annually, ranging from $500 to $3,000. Eligible groups include African Americans, Hispanics, and Native North Americans who are US citizens or permanent residents enrolled in actuarial science or related coursework. The 2026 deadline was March 31.

IABA Scholarship Program — The International Association of Black Actuaries offers $1,500 to $5,000 awards for Black undergraduate and graduate students. The academic bar is specific: 600+ SAT Math or 28+ ACT Math, plus a passed or attempted actuarial exam and completed VEE (Validation by Educational Experience) credits. Applications open in January each year.

Milliman Opportunity Scholarship awards $5,000 one-time to an ethnic minority undergrad. Milliman is one of the world's largest actuarial consulting firms (with more than 4,000 actuaries across 60 countries), and their eligible majors list is broad — actuarial science, data science, statistics, mathematics, finance, and economics all qualify.

Scholarship	Amount	Target Group	Key Deadline
Joint CAS/SOA Minority	$500–$3,000 (~30 awards)	Black, Hispanic, Native American	March 31
IABA Scholarship	$1,500–$5,000	Black actuarial students	January–March window
OLA Scholarship	Varies	Latino actuarial students	Opens Jan 1, 2027
SANA Scholarship	Varies	South Asian actuarial students	Jan 15 / Jul 15
Milliman Opportunity	$5,000 one-time	Ethnic minority students	Varies by cycle

Two programs that consistently fly under the radar: the Organization of Latino Actuaries (OLA) and the South Asian Network of Actuaries (SANA). SANA runs two application windows per year — January 15 and July 15 — which means two separate chances annually instead of the standard once-a-year structure. That's a structural advantage worth using.

Competition-Based Awards: Win by Doing Real Work

Modeling the Future Challenge is unlike any other scholarship on this list. The Actuarial Foundation runs this annual competition for high school students, who form teams of 1–5 and build actuarial models around real-world risk datasets. Past topics have included climate risk, pandemic insurance data, and economic mobility. The competition distributes $55,000 in total scholarships across four prize tiers: $25,000 for first place, $15,000 for second, $10,000 for third, and $5,000 for fourth. First- and second-place team members who attend Hofstra University also receive an additional $2,000 institutional scholarship.

Registration for the 2026-2027 season reopens in August 2026.

Here's the non-obvious reason this one matters: MTFC requires you to do the actual work of an actuary — cleaning data, identifying risk patterns, making defensible recommendations under uncertainty. That experience reads clearly on college applications and early internship interviews in a way that a GPA line never can.

"Building a real risk model as a high school student isn't just impressive on a college application — it's proof that you understand what actuaries actually do before you've ever taken a formal exam."

D.W. Simpson and Firm-Backed Awards

D.W. Simpson is one of the most respected actuarial recruiting firms in the US, and they put real money behind their interest in the next generation. The scholarship is $1,000, awarded to one rising senior each cycle. Requirements: 3.0+ GPA overall, 3.2+ in their actuarial science major, at least one passed exam, and work authorization in the US. Applications open January 1 each year.

A thousand dollars isn't going to change your financial picture on its own. But D.W. Simpson places candidates at major insurers, consulting firms, and reinsurers across the country — the scholarship puts you in their database in the best possible way. Treat it as a visibility opportunity that happens to come with a check.

University-Level Awards: The Overlooked Layer

The least competitive scholarships in actuarial science are institutional ones. Schools with strong actuarial programs — the University of Illinois ASRM department, Ball State, Drake, the University of Waterloo — maintain their own award funds, and the applicant pool is limited to current enrolled students.

Departmental scholarship dollars routinely go unclaimed because students assume they won't qualify or don't know the award exists. Illinois ASRM maintains a dedicated awards and scholarships page updated each academic year. Your financial aid office may have a list that never appears in any national database. These awards typically range $1,000 to $5,000 and are often renewable year over year.

This is the elephant in the room for most scholarship guides: national programs get all the attention, but institutional awards convert at much higher rates because the applicant volume is far lower.

What Strong Applications Actually Have in Common

Most actuarial scholarship applications come down to the same three signals: academic strength in mathematics, demonstrated commitment to the profession, and a clear personal narrative about why you specifically want this career.

The narrative is where most students lose. "I love math" tells a committee nothing. "I spent six weeks at a regional P&C insurer building a frequency-severity model for auto claims and realized I wanted to do this professionally" tells them everything they need to know. Specificity beats generality every single time.

A few tactical notes worth keeping:

Pass Exam P before you apply to most national programs. Even an attempt signals commitment that GPA alone can't convey.
Get recommendation letters from quantitative faculty who know your mathematical reasoning, not just advisors who know your name.
Spread your applications across different cycles. SANA's dual windows, OLA's January open, and MTFC's August registration mean staggered opportunities throughout the year rather than one annual crunch.
Check your department's scholarship page directly. Institutional awards rarely show up in national scholarship aggregators.

My honest read on the landscape: the diversity scholarships are the most underutilized pool in actuarial science. Thirty awards from the Joint CAS/SOA program sounds modest — but when your competition is the subset of eligible minority actuarial students who actually apply, those odds become genuinely interesting. Apply everywhere you qualify.

Bottom Line

The total available scholarships for a student working the full field — STEM Stars, CAS Trust, Robertson, Milliman, IABA — can exceed $40,000 across four years. But it requires knowing where to look and applying with real specificity.

High school students: Target STEM Stars (fall deadline) and enter the Modeling the Future Challenge (August registration reopens).
Undergrads: CAS Trust and Stuart Robertson are the highest-value national targets; layer in any diversity programs you're eligible for.
Graduate students: Track the Hickman Scholar Program if an academic career is in view.
Everyone: Pass Exam P. It's the single highest-leverage action for your scholarship competitiveness — and for your internship pipeline at the same time.
Don't ignore institutional awards. Your school's actuarial department likely has scholarship dollars that never appear in a national search.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to have passed an actuarial exam to apply for scholarships?

Not for every program — but passing one changes how committees read your application. The CAS Trust Scholarship explicitly requires it. The Joint CAS/SOA Minority Scholarship doesn't mandate it, but candidates with a passed exam typically stand out in a competitive pool. Exam P (Probability) is the standard entry point and the one to target first.

Can international students apply for US actuarial science scholarships?

Most programs on this list require US citizenship or permanent resident status — that includes the Joint CAS/SOA Minority Scholarship and most Actuarial Foundation programs. The University of Waterloo's institutional scholarships are a clear exception. International students enrolled at US universities should check directly with their financial aid office, as departmental awards sometimes carry different residency rules than national programs.

Is the Modeling the Future Challenge worth entering even if I don't expect to win a top prize?

Yes. Semifinalists and regional finalists build competition experience that genuinely strengthens college applications and actuarial internship candidacy. The MTFC requires you to construct a real data model under contest conditions — that's substantive professional experience regardless of where you place. The scholarship is valuable; the credential of having done the work is more durable.

What's the practical difference between a CAS scholarship and an SOA scholarship?

The CAS credential track (ACAS/FCAS) covers property and casualty insurance: auto, homeowners, workers' compensation, commercial liability, catastrophe risk. SOA's track (ASA/FSA) covers life insurance, health insurance, pension plans, and investment risk. Their scholarships reflect that split. If you already know which practice area you're targeting, apply to the corresponding organization's programs first. If you're undecided, both are worth pursuing.

Are diversity scholarships available to students who haven't declared actuarial science as their major?

Sometimes. The Milliman Opportunity Scholarship explicitly allows majors in data science, statistics, mathematics, economics, and finance — not just actuarial science. IABA targets students pursuing actuarial careers regardless of declared major. Always read the eligibility requirements carefully before assuming you don't qualify. The major requirement is more flexible in many programs than students assume.