FA letter just posted

<p>@Lilliana330 I think all aid awards (merit and need) usually come on one statement. It did for other schools our son was accepted to.</p>

<p>@corclan‌ Ohh okay, sooo there’s still a chance at some more cash. Thanks!</p>

<p>@itsapillowpet - our EFC is at least 25K higher than FAFSA also, but I’m not surprised - we have a lot of home equity (bought our CA house 25 years ago) and also both have 401K retirement plans. I can’t remember, but I think the form also asked about all our monthly expenses, which we have no debt. If you don’t know why yours would be so much higher, then yes you should call them in case a mistake was made.</p>

<p>@jbourne, we’re in basically the same situation. We knew going in that we weren’t getting anything need based and that the national merit stuff was also not happening. However, we got lulled into thinking we might see something when the other schools our D applied to came through with scholarships (especially given that they are all much smaller and have no where near the endowment, or cost, of USC).</p>

<p>@theWeaver - yes, we are not feeling the love right now. Nothing from USC and nothing from Santa Clara (which I was expecting 10K, but hoping for more). We did get a 15K discount at USD (but the calculator on their website said 25K for D’s GPA and ACT). Not sure what to do, but we are touring UCSB and Cal Poly next week as well as USC. I’ve called Santa Clara twice (because I think she really wants to go there), but two different FA people basically just said ‘sorry, tough luck’. I know her stats are probably in the top 10-15% for there, but I’m guessing we don’t add anything to help their diversity goals.</p>

<p>You are not alone. Many people are lulled into thinking great sums of money are going to appear but in most cases they do not. That is certainly over-marketed on this USC forum, with people whose kids graduated many years ago still flaunting what they got in every post.</p>

<p>It is much easier to get to a great college these days by having nothing than to have saved and worked for it for years. </p>

<p>Most People lull themselves, by not being candid with themselves when filling out the Net Price Calculators. For example 401K contributions even though non-taxable should be considered income. Home equity should be considered assets, etc… I found that the Net Price Calculator was mostly correct. The university is doing nothing wrong, and being upfront about how they do the FA, everyone just “hopes” it was better.</p>

<p>Repeating: the university is not lulling anybody, people are lulling themselves.</p>

<p>@blueskies2day is not correct about having nothing is better than having saved and worked for years.</p>

<p>DS’s fin aid is still not posted . Should we contact?</p>

<p>@rgosula‌, no need to ride to USC’s defense (at least not for me). Like I said, our going in assumption was we’d get zero and we planned accordingly. The only reason we saw a glimmer of hope was due to fairly sizable awards from other schools in the last month. Was the hope unreasonable? Perhaps, but it wasn’t based on absolutely nothing.</p>

<p>I certainly did not state or even imply that USC did anything “wrong”. It’s just one dimension on which they don’t come out favorably in comparison to other schools (again, not in the abstract, but for our actual situation).</p>

<p>And to be clear – it’s still likely that my D will attend since USC is tops for the program she’s in.</p>

<p>@rgosula Way to twist words. I didn’t say " having nothing is better than having saved and worked for years" I did say “It is much easier to get to a great college these days by having nothing than to have saved and worked for it for years.” I also didn’t accuse USC of wrongdoing, I said this forum is misleading which is probably why two different administrators at USC said it is best to stay off of college confidential for accurate information.</p>

<p>It is better to read what is written.</p>

<p>Would you have been happier if I quoted verbatim. Not sure how I twisted words.</p>

<p>@blueskies2day is not correct about “It is much easier to get to a great college these days by having nothing than to have saved and worked for it for years”</p>

<p>Ok that is what I meant to say. Not that I am claiming to know myself, but most people on these forums have no idea what it means to have nothing.</p>

<p>If you couldn’t see or understand the difference in those two different quotes…well good luck.</p>

<p>therefore I did not twist words</p>

<p>From @jbourne “I’m guessing we don’t add anything to help their diversity goals.”
Schools typically don’t consider diversity AT ALL when determining need-based aid (and I can certainly attest that was true in our case – we add scads of diversity but pay the full-pay amount).</p>

<p>@blueskies2day wrote “It is much easier to get to a great college these days by having nothing than to have saved and worked for it for years.”</p>

<p>I’m sure others will agree that it’s better to have saved. Our young friend had to refuse her dream school because her parents are struggling, financially, and the financial aid still didn’t make the school an option. Even with financial aid, you’ll see that most at private universities are not in the “I have nothing” category.</p>

<p>I think USC does a fair (or at least transparent) job in determining aid.</p>

<p>

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<p>In my experience over the past 2 years, yes.</p>

<p>@CCM - since my EFC is equal to or greater than COA, I am clearly talking about merit awards and
they are certainly used as incentive to create the diverse pool the school desires. I don’t have any
rose colored glasses on about that or any issues about it… Like, I said, just not feeling the love right now.
Like when we got the notice from Santa Clara about no merit, then an email the next day saying, ‘your
financial aid awards are ready for you to accept!’. well, their definition of ‘award’ (fed loan) is different than mine!</p>

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<p>Us too.</p>

<p>We have two in college. But we do have some retirement savings and some home equity - not a lot, but enough apparently. The EFC calculated by USC was 25,000 more than the EFC calculated by Fafsa. </p>

<p>But we assumed we’d get nothing so that any amount - no matter the size - would be a positive. But the high number relative to the online calculator was still shocking given we are supporting two in college. We did put in our assets (retirement, home equity, savings) and the calculator still showed a figure half of what we received in reality. The FA office has twice told parents in meetings to ignore the calculator.</p>

<p>The advice we got was to hold off on looking for private scholarships (exception those offered on campus) for one more year. Then start looking for them when our oldest graduates from college and is no longer in the “mix”. We were told (and agreed) that the amount of time invested in an outside scholarship search isn’t worth the gain right now. It would sap away time from studies and any funds would cause her scholarship to go down if it exceeded her student loans. Also, not to withdraw retirement as it would just cause our “income” that year to look inflated and that would also erode any university grants she received.</p>

<p>It was a good meeting, and we’re totally committed to making the sacrifices necessary. But when we left the meeting, we saw a lobby full of distressed parents waiting to speak to the rep. So we knew we weren’t alone. And questions about “cost” continually comes up in forums during parent weekend. We’ve also seen some kids decline their acceptances because there isn’t any wiggle room in the family finances. For many taking loans amounting to multiples of their annual income isn’t feasible or advisable.</p>

<p>So forearmed is forewarned. At one time, retirement savings were considered off limits if below a certain thresh hold. Then the government changed the law to allow people to withdraw their savings early with no penalty to pay for college (still taxable as income). That pushed a lot of middle class families into a different bracket for aid on paper. To make this work - you tap equity, withdraw retirement, or take out very large parent loans. </p>

<p>Although I will say that the loan processor told us that if you work a minimum of 30 hours per week at a school, government office/agency, or non-profit, they can adjust your payments based on income and any balance remaining after 10 years will be forgiven. While that doesn’t apply to me, for those in those types of careers - it’s an attractive option.</p>

<p>Welcome to the Trojan family! For what its worth, sending our kid is a financial stretch for us, but we have really, REALLY enjoyed the school so far.</p>

<p>@ArtsandLetters - when you say ‘outside private scholarships’, are you talking about the local $250, $500, etc ones? I am thinking that the above advice about not applying for them only matters if you are getting need-based aid? Since I know we are full pay, I gave my D incentive to apply for them - any she wins, we will donate half to her ‘post graduation’ savings account to help with her first apartment/car/whatever. They are a lot of work (essays, recommendations, etc). Plus I think about 75% of them also involve a need-based and/or ethnic requirement. But she’s trying!</p>

<p>@ArtsandLetters‌, curious about the same thing as @jbourne‌. We were planning to have our D try bagging a few of the smallish ones since she’s a good essay writer and it might help out a bit. However, if that just mucks things up then it won’t be worth her time.</p>

<p>For us I think the main difference was that she received scholarships for non-academic merit from the other schools (for her art portfolio). In reading the web sites it seems that Roski offers similar scholarships for incoming freshmen, but SCA does not. Makes sense given the competitive nature of SCA (it’s an honor just to be admitted and all :wink: ).</p>

<p>I am guessing that possibly there are still more Merit scholarships to be awarded. I know the National Merit Half Tuition Presidential have not been awarded yet, and they are supposed to go out by regular mail today.</p>