<p>Hi, long time lurker, first time poster here.</p>
<p>I have a question about my financial aid at USC. I have an EFC of 0 and USC is basically covering everything minus $3000 that I would take out in subsidized loans each year. I received the Dean's Scholarship, Cal Grants, a mix of other grants, and a huge University Grant. So I'm getting a very good offer from USC. However, my mom is skeptical about USC keeping up with financial aid the following years while I'm enrolled at USC. Assuming that my financial situation remains the same for the following years, am I guaranteed the same type of financial aid the following years (particularly, the huge University Grant of $12K per semester)? My mom is worried that they may drop my financial aid the following years, offering me this offer only for my first year.</p>
<p>Lastly, I'd like to know about the undergraduate chemistry department at USC.</p>
<p>USC gave me a similar package with a large university grant my freshman year. Then for my sophomore year they dropped it more than 11k out of nowhere and after multiple appeals, still wound up being dropped about 8k from my freshman year. USC doesn’t guarantee anything. They say they try but thats about it. So your mom has a definite right to be worried. If i woulda known about the drop off, i wouldn’t have come here. Too late now though.</p>
<p>The Stafford loan limits rise $1,000 sophomore year, and again Jr. year, and then remain the same senior year. USC will calculate aid next year using the FAFSA and the CSS/Profile and their own formula to find your USC-determined need, just as they did this year. If every piece of information on every form were to remain exactly the same (and this is highly improbable), your grant would be $1,000 less because your Stafford loan would be $1,000 more. If your family has a higher or lower income next year your aid will be a different amount. If there are two undergraduates in your family right now and one graduates, your grant would be reduced significantly. All of this information, and much more, is painstakingly explained in the first two pages of <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/839970-faq-usc-financial-aid-2010-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/839970-faq-usc-financial-aid-2010-a.html</a></p>
<p>Re #3: Magtro, let’s go over what you knew and when you knew it. You knew your aid was need-based, right? So you knew you would have to re-apply each year, and if your need changed the next year, your aid would change, right? So how could you not have known about the possibility of a “drop-off”?</p>
<p>USC guarantees to meet 100% of need every year, from freshman to senior, but does not guarantee the aid will not change from year to year as your need changes.</p>
<p>All the kids I know who got need-based aid from USC had their need consistently met by USC, EVERY year. They got large grants each and every year and were all very pleased with the financial packages USC offered them. They all also got significant merit awards that were also renewed each year. Their financial need was significant each year and did not change while they were at USC.</p>
<p>^maybe thats true for you, HImom, but I go here, and know so many people who got screwed by usc financial aid this year, including several people who had to leave because the package change was so bad. I had to seriously consider it to, but I decided it would be too much of a pain, so now im just graduating a semester early to try and make up for it.</p>
<p>-If your income/assets/number in college changes, your package will change. </p>
<p>-You reapply every year, the same formula is used every year.</p>
<p>-Stafford loan amounts go up Sophomore year by $1,000, and Junior year by $1,000. If everything else stayed exactly the same, your need-based USC grant would be reduced by a corresponding amount.</p>
<p>magtro, you are implying that all of your financial information stayed exactly the same - income, assets, number in college, and the other 30 or 40 pages of information on the FAFSA and CSS/Profile. Did all of your information stay exactly the same? If that is so, when you called to inquire - what was USC’s answer?</p>
<p>USC’s finaid formula changed last year. Some people had pretty big hits to their finaid statements, although most had smaller ones. It was a pretty big deal on campus with articles about it in the Daily Trojan, etc. The biggest change in the formula is that they expect every student to be able to work full-time during the summer and provide about $3,000.</p>
<p>My university grant was originally decreased by 8,000 but I successfully appealed and got most of it back.</p>
<p>lame mom, he (magtro in #3) said that after multiple appeals his grant aid dropped $8K from freshman to sophomore year</p>
<p>he is saying there is no possible explanation except that he was being singled out for abuse by USC’s FA people</p>
<p>that all of us (you, me, HIMom, and thousands of others) whose USC aid is consistent from year to year are getting diferent treatment than he is</p>
<p>that he has heard others are being abused as well (but without details or first hand accounts we do not pay any attention to those)</p>
<p>Jose (#9) you are correct that the change last year was to the summer earnings expectation, but it was not from 0 to $3000, but from some other number to $3000. There had been a prior number that it was changed from.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the other number was, but the FA office said in an email last August that the number had not been changed in 10 years so was in need of adjustment due to increases in the minimum wage. This means at most the change was something like from $2000 to $3000. So worst case scenario, a student who had no summer earnings at all had their grant aid reduced $1000. </p>
<p>This alone would not explain the drastic unexplainable reductions in aid we hear about, but which never seem to be substantiated.</p>
<p>Jose (#12), the facebook group was mainly formed to complain about poor service last summer from the FA dept., something everybody admitted was true due to the avalanche of additional people applying and needing follow up. The increase in work load was just not able to be smoothly worked into the existing structure. The FA dept has been completely reorganized this year with new online handling of documents, more staff, and even a complete tear down and redesign of the physical offices.</p>
<p>jose, yes I am aware of the summer earnings expectation. I wrote a whole FAQ thread to try to explain that YES, *you will be expected to contribute to your own education *with Stafford loans, work/study and summer earnings. For students applying this year, their summer earnings expectation (part of the self-help portion of the package) will not be increased. As dt123 points out, that figure had remained the same for more than ten years, and is likely to remain the same for the next ten+ years.</p>
<p>For students who come on here claiming they were “screwed” by financial aid, it almost always has nothing to do with the numbers on the applications, the income, assets, Federal regualtions, or formulas. They make that statement when they don’t get as much as they want, or as much as it will take to get their parents to let them go to USC, or as much *as they got the year before *- ignoring whether the numbers (income, assets, # in college…) on their aid application changed or if the aid package is appropriate given the income, assets, year in college, # of undergraduates, etc.</p>
<p>Financial aid is not supposed to make college “affordable,” it is supposed to make it possible. And by “possible” I mean with sacrifice and penny-pinching and summer work and Stafford loans and just barely. The money in the aid packages come from taxpayers (fed aid) and from USC donors (USC grants). The EFC is a struggle for every family to pay whether they have a $100 EFC or a $99,999 EFC. The fact that magtro *is at USC *with the financial package that was calculated using the information on his application shows that the financial aid package made it possible. Not easy, not affordable, but possible.</p>
<p>alamemom I completely agree with your assessment of the purpose of finaid (possible vs affordable). I’m not trying to argue with either of you two. I’m merely pointing out that magtro’s situation was not an isolated incident, and that there were a significant number of students in a similar situation.</p>
<p>Personally I’ve been satisfied with the finaid provided by USC for all 4 years.</p>
<p>^ magtro’s situation is that USC was still possible for him, so it seems the package was sufficient. I was merely pointing that out.
Yes, last year the increase was across the board, *so all students on financial aid *had their student contribution increased. The increase, by the way, put USC’s student contribution in line with the UCs and many other colleges - which had been higher than USC’s for many years.</p>
<p>I’ve noticed the statement “summer earnings” mentioned here on CC, ie; $3,000. We just got our FA package and I don’t see where it mentions this. I see Federal Work-Study for Fall and Spring. Just nothing about Summer. My daughter got her first “real” job a couple months ago, but unfortunately because of the economy they never call her in to work. She’s had very few hours and didn’t work at all during spring break. The unemployment rate is 15% in our county right now. Does USC definitely want to see a kid making $3,000 during the summer? I’m just wondering why they didn’t include that on our package and how that works. Just don’t want any surprises! ;)</p>
<p>**Here’s one post I’m referring to:</p>
<p>Jose (#9) you are correct that the change last year was to the summer earnings expectation, but it was not from 0 to $3000, but from some other number to $3000. There had been a prior number that it was changed from.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the other number was, but the FA office said in an email last August that the number had not been changed in 10 years so was in need of adjustment due to increases in the minimum wage. This means at most the change was something like from $2000 to $3000. So worst case scenario, a student who had no summer earnings at all had their grant aid reduced $1000. </p>
<p>This alone would not explain the drastic unexplainable reductions in aid we hear about, but which never seem to be substantiated.**</p>
<p>The summer earnings is not specifically called out as such in the package. It is just part (or all) of the calculated gap (EFC) between CoA and the FA award that the family has to fill somehow.</p>
<p>EFC has the following components:
contribution from parent’s assets
contribution from parent’s prior year earnings
contribution from student’s assets
contribution from student’s prior year earnings
$3000 the student is expected to earn the summer before school starts</p>
<p>Thus, every student will have an EFC of at least $3000, even if every other component is 0. In other words, the most aid one could ever get is full CoA less $3,000. Where that money comes from actually is not anyone’s concern. It could come from summer work, or Grandma, or selling plasma, or lottery winnings, wherever.</p>
<p>^ THAT answered my question. I’m just thinking of the job market in my county and I could just see my daughter not being able to earn $3,000 or whatever the number is and having USC rescind her acceptance. Yikes.</p>
<p>Also, how would outside scholarships work? For instance, she just got a $3,000 scholarship. Can she use this for her EFC? That way any money she earned this summer she could use toward spending money at USC. Work-study will all toward tuition/fees, so it would be nice to have some extra cash. The Bank of Mom and Pop will be running dry after our *own *EFC. ;)</p>
<p>**dt123 wrote:</p>
<p>Thus, every student will have an EFC of at least $3000, even if every other component is 0. In other words, the most aid one could ever get is full CoA less $3,000. Where that money comes from actually is not anyone’s concern. It could come from summer work, or Grandma, or selling plasma, or lottery winnings, wherever.**</p>
<p>You don’t think they’ll be doing this *every *year, do you? Or at least not significant increases.</p>
<p>**alamemmom said:</p>
<p>Yes, last year the increase was across the board, so all students on financial aid had their student contribution increased. The increase, by the way, put USC’s student contribution in line with the UCs and many other colleges - which had been higher than USC’s for many years.**</p>