<p>My D will be attending UCLA in the fall. The tuition is currently about $12.8K. The total cost with insurance, on campus housing, materials and books, in a residence hall is estimated to be about $31K. I’d guess USC costs more. USC is definitely a great institution that is improving. But there are many factors here including the fact that the UC costs will allow me to fund my D up to grad school without loans. The rankings and rates and scores are a confusing quagmire. Even USNWR has both its “best universities” and “400 Best World Universities” rankings with different criteria and different rankings for USC and UCLA. To say that UCLA is “waning” while USC is surging is a very biased and somewhat meaningless view – it’s about as accurate as saying Berkeley is only for Hippies or USC is for football lovers who don’t mind living in the 'hood.</p>
<p>Where is the best education for a kid? A small liberal arts college? Harvard? A community college? CalTech? These fine institutions give our kids fantastic opportunities. Let’s hope they are more interested in doing something constructive with the future rather than squabbling over minutia.</p>