I was admitted to USC for fall 2019 as a linguistics major, but I plan on switching to CS in Viterbi if I can, or changing to computational linguistics within Dornsife if I can’t. I got my financial aid package today, and I will have to pay a minimum of 20k a year with an additional 3.5k in loans a year. Between college funds from grandparents and my personal savings, I have about 35k saved up. I haven’t talked in depth with my parents about the financial situation, but I would probably shoulder the rest of the costs, leaving me with probably around 60k in debt before interest.
My other option is my state flagship of Indiana University. I was admitted as a linguistics major there as well, but I could definitely change into a computer science major. They offered me full tuition plus 10k a year for extra expenses. However, I have lived in Bloomington (the town where Indiana University is located) for my whole life, and I really need something new. While it would probably be a better choice financially to go to IU, I probably wouldn’t be as happy there as I would be at USC, plus USC has better career outcomes.
After college, I want to work in tech as a software developer somewhere on the west coast. I may consider doing a PhD, but professional school isn’t in my future plans.
Stay with Indiana. You aren’t going to be able to shoulder that debt without a co-signer. And it would be ill advised for your parents to co-sign that amount of loans. If you do this, you will be poor and unable to afford to live where you want to live after graduation.
After you get your degree, you will actually be able to afford to live where you want to be.
If your parents were willing and able to pay the 20k a year, it would be a reasonable option to consider, but since that doesn’t seem to be the case take the offer of the school that loves you.
Talk to your parents and do the calculation on what 60k would set you back each month once you graduate. Don’t make a snap decision. It might be worth the money to attend USC and it might not. It’s your future and you want to make a decision with your eyes wide open and all options on the table.
You can onl borriw the standard federal loans on your own. Any debt beyond that would need to be debt your parents take on or that they cosign with you. Most people do not recommend borrowing more than the standard student loans, and would consider USC unaffordable.
You need to talk with your parents, and find out what they can afford to pay before you spen one more second thinking about this. They might be able to help cover the cost of USC without extra debt. But if they can’t, remember that USC would burn down all of your savings, and would leave you with a boatload of debt. IU would leave you with that savings and no debt. You could have a truly nifty junior year abroad, or a double major, or take unpaid internships in the summer, or have plenty of money to move across the country and put down the rent deposit when you get that first post-college job.
It does not appear that USC is affordable. I’d to to IU and graduate debt free. You can try to take a semester or a year abroad or in another US city while you are at IU.
Sounds like USC is where you want to be. Try and make it work if you can, if you’ll be happier there, you’ll do better there. It will also be way easier to land a job in CA graduating from USC. Most posters are giving you the “parental” advice, which is great advice, but maybe not always the right advice. Hope it works out, IU is a great option is USC isn’t.
How do you think you will pay that $20K a year? No idea what’s in your financial aid package–do you have loans and work study in there? $20k doesn’t stay at that level either. Costs go up and most colleges expect upper classmen to come up with more of the costs each year. You can take $27K in loans in your own name pretty much automatically, but not much more without bringing your parent or other person into the picture and hamstringing them with them.
I can also tell you that you can feel miserably poor when you are at the bottom of the economic heap where ever you are. Having to come up with that money you will need to do USC is going to mean forgoing a lot of things USC is famous for with undergrads.
Unless your parents can pay that $20k per year from their savings or income, USC is not affordable. $60k in loans would be weigh you down and limit your choices for a very long time. Talk to your parents about what they can afford. If they can’t help with that $20k per year, walk away. As someone else mentioned upthread, USC isn’t a school you want to attend as a cash strapped student. It’s an extremely wealthy student body.
Go to Indiana. Work your schedule so you can do two semesters abroad (generally your junior year to get you away from “home” for a bit. Start researching areas on the West Coast you’d like to move to after graduation.
You can’t borrow $65k. Students can only borrow ~$5500/year. If you want to be a software developer why would you attend a school where you haven’t been accepted into the CS major? Take the full ride.
What are your sources for this statement? @ucbalumnus can probably tell you how to compare career outcomes at different colleges. I think graduating debt free with a CS degree is a much better outcome then graduating with a non CS degree and over $65k in debt.
$65K would be roughly double the average debt at graduation from many selective private schools (among students who have any debt at all). So, it’s not a trivial amount, even if you can find a way to borrow it (which you may not be able to do).
But, to set costs aside for a moment, how much research have you done on program/department strengths at these two schools? For general linguistics, you may find that Indiana is, if anything, a little stronger than USC. For CS and computational linguistics, it may be the other way around … but, I’m not sure the difference (strictly in terms of undergraduate academic quality) would justify a boatload of debt.
The total cost of USC is not just the amount that you borrow. It is the amount borrowed, the interest you have to repay, and the opportunity cost you lose in having to repay that interest. This is basic finance. You should run an amortization schedule (look up that term if you do not know what it means) to see what the actual cost of the borrowed amount would be over the entire term of the loan repayment period (factoring in the interest). With that number, is USC actually worth it, especially when you could be doing other things with the same money? Odds are, it is isn’t.
I don’t quite understand your financial aid package at USC.
Can you list in your next post the figures for
(Tuition, fees, room, board) - (grants, scholarships) =
Apparently you for a $3.5k loan. Correct?
Is there a 2.5k loan also? If not, you can borrow that too.
Are you currently working? If not can you start?
What can your parents pay? Have you talked to them about it? Typically parents set aside some amount from their income for their kid’s college , even if it’s not as much as the colleges want.
Go to Indiana will the full ride. Do a semester abroad or an semester exchange with another college. In ten years you won’t regret going to Indiana, but you if you’re still paying off the USC debt because you got sidetracked with other expenses along the way, you will regret that.