<p>Thanks hyakku!</p>
<p>Sequoia, last year, our scholarship didn’t get credited until after s has started school. One of his scholarship hasn’t even been posted on his Oasis yet. And yes, we have the same amount posted on epay. Housing amount isn’t up yet and none of this is due till Aug something. As long as the scholarship is on her Oasis, you have nothing to worry about. We didn’t even receive any email about scholarships being posted on Oasis at all. It’s frustrating that it’s so inconsistent.</p>
<p>hyakku, that’s great news. My appeal is in process right now, hopefully it’ll go through >_<! <em>crosses fingers</em></p>
<p>My brother is what they call “adult children” I guess, getting his masters 
which requires alot of money. And my dad doesn’t make that much money to start out with… and with the exchange rate these days, it went down about 10K from what he had (so in all its like 35K a year for the entire family). My brother pays full tuition at cornell and he’s about -65K himself. Good times hopefully they’ll accept the appeal. T_T.</p>
<p>I don’t know why my fin aid package dropped from last year although my father makes less money than previous year. I guess it’s because of my brother (was undergrad last year) but in reality its alot worse this year.</p>
<p>I could be wrong but I recalled my daughter said the scholarship amount for Pres Scholarship has been posted(but not the NMS Corp scholarship). I guess that won’t be posted until school starts.</p>
<p>uyulove,</p>
<p>I think that graduate students are no longer considered to be under the umbrella of the parents, and thus are no longer taken into account in determining your EFC. Someone should correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
<p>^I know… but hopefully they’ll at least consider it. T_T sigh.</p>
<p>But that’s not how it works…that’s what everyone has been trying to tell you whenever you bring up your case.</p>
<p>^What’s the harm in trying? geez, I know already, just figured might as well ask because I have nothing to lose by asking. I figured since my father’s contract is almost over it it would also add on to the case.
And actually last year, I had a similar conversation with the Fin aid department. I think when I told them about my brother they took it into consideration.</p>
<p>My parents available income decreased significantly this year; however USC has taken away not only ALL of our grants but also my work study. We filed an appeal in June and were told we would hear the results in July, but we still haven’t heard anything. My father calls constantly, but every time he calls he’s told the wait is too long for him to speak to anyone and his emails go unanswered. I’m going to be a senior. This is such a frustrating and bureaucratic process. I feel like USC is neglecting their current students in the hopes of attracting better statistics through financial aid packages given to incoming freshmen. Hopefully they listen to my appeal. Otherwise, we can’t afford to stay.</p>
<p>Did you meet the conditions (high enough GPA) to keep your financial aid? If you met the conditions of the financial aid package and let USC know of your parent(s) decrease in income prior to the deadline, then it sounds like there is a mistake. I suggest you fly to USC financial aid office ASAP with the necessary income documentation. If you live in California, perhaps your parents will let you drive to USC to resolve your situation. I am very sorry to read about what happened.</p>
<p>I just wanted to follow up on my earlier post in which I described how last year I received a 20,000 grant but no grant at all this year. The reasons for the reduced aid are unknown and are not for obvious reasons like increased income or siblings graduating. First though, I want to address how someone just mentioned in another post regarding financial aid about how many of the financial aid complaints are from people with only one post and these people should be viewed suspiciously. I strongly reject this notion as many upper class USC students do not have much reason to post much on College Confidential,but something such as a significantly reduced financial aid package draws them in to see if someone else had a similar experience. This is the very reason I came to College Confidential in the first place and sure enough there was this thread where people were talking of having the same problem as me! It is a mistake to essentially dismiss peoples financial aid problems because you haven’t had similar problems. Anyway, back to following up on my situation. I appealed my financial aid package on the simple basis that all things remained the same yet I received no grant this year like last year. Then, on top of that my only parent that is able to work just got laid off. All supporting documentation was submitted as part of the appeal. This was over two weeks ago. My emails to the financial aid office go unanswered. I assume I will hear from them at some point, but it seems they should tell me soon if my appeal is denied (if so, on what basis?) or sustained. The semester starts soon. I think they are having some issues over at the financial aid office causing them to reduce aid and be unresponsive, but I haven’t determined exactly what the deal is yet. I’ll be sure to update this thread as warranted.</p>
<p>Has anybody seen anything official about the formula to calculate financial aid being changed? </p>
<p>Good luck to everybody waiting to hear.</p>
<p>This has been a very disturbing thread. It is wrong for so many reasons for the FA of continuing students, particularly the rising seniors who have no change (or a change for the worse) in family finances and who meet all the criteria (GPA, # of units, etc.) to maintain financial aid, to suddenly experience a significant (20K!) drop in their FA. The fact that the FA office is not responding to students and families in this situation is a serious problem. Given that there is no explicit change in FA policy, I’m wondering if the administration is aware of all this. I would like to suggest that the students and families who find themselves in this situation send brief, factual letters including summaries of the documentation and dates that FA has been contacted by phone or email and has not responded, headed by something like “3.6 Senior who cannot return to USC because of unexplained 20K drop in FA” and send them to Dr. Sample. Department heads of the relevant departments might also be helpful in terms of giving voice to your concerns, but wouldn’t have the power to fix things. School starts in a couple of weeks, and assuming this sort of thing is not supposed to be happening, it might take intervention from someone in authority outside of FA to remedy the situation. Good luck!</p>
<p>Facebook group: [USC</a> Financial Aid has officially screwed me over. | Facebook](<a href=“Facebook”>Facebook)</p>
<p>If you’re going to contact the university beyond FA directly, I would respectfully suggest that the tone of the facebook group is something you might want to avoid. Entering freshmen enraged that Syracuse and BU offered them FA while USC didn’t are not in the same situation as the continuing students on this board. Tirades about how USC should have more and better FA voice some general concerns that are not the point for the continuing students who have had their aid sliced by a substantial percentage. It’s good to have a place to vent, but sounding like an angry kid (even if you are an angry kid) is not going to get you taken as seriously as you deserve in this situation.</p>
<p>ConanW, I assume it is my comments on another thread to which you are referring. As you are new to college confidential, you are of course unaware that low-post count screen names are viewed very carefully throughout college confidential. Some forums place that warning in a “sticky” thread at the top of the forum, such as this warning “stickied” at the top of College Essays:
</p>
<p>If you post on the Financial Aid forum, you will find that the experts there routinely check past posts to get context for the question and reply. For less biased responses, you may want to post your questions and concerns there, though they will ask for much more information than you have provided here.</p>
<p>In addition, I did not say “many” of the posts were from new members, I said two of them were - and I specifically said they may be legitimate posts, and included them in the total of 5 continuing students reporting they were unhappy with continuing student financial aid.</p>
<p>Nester has some good suggestions for pursuing answers. ConanW, be sure to post when you get your answers from Financial Aid. hyakku, for example, originally posted that his FA had been reduced and he could see no reason why, then he discovered that he and his parents had made several errors on the FAFSA. When the errors were corrected, his financial aid was adjusted. I very much appreciate that he came back and let us know what happened.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that it seems clear that there are problems with how the financial aid office is conducting themselves and yet there remains a sentiment among some that the issue does not exist. At the very least, the grant reductions are justified (unlikely) but under no circumstances would their unresponsiveness and lack of justification for changes be justified. If you question the posts here, view the posts on the Facebook group that just opened a couple days ago (link above). It has people’s names, picture, USC network designation and so on which all help substantiate their claims. There can be no question that these people are real USC students. Further it seems most likely they are telling the truth. The advice provided by Nester is generally good, but condescending. Needless to say the tone one takes in a Facebook group amongst peers is distinct from the tone one would take in a letter to USC authorities. Everyone knows that. Also, despite your reference to people who posted who are recent admits from high school, the vast majority of posts in the Facebook group are from current USC students reporting huge inexplicable grant reductions.</p>
<p>I do not question that they are “telling the truth” that their grants may have been reduced. What is left out are the details (from the multi-page FAFSA and CSS/Profile, for example) that may explain those reductions. For three posters on this thread, for example, it turned out that a sibling had graduated and the EFC was no longer split. Though that is the way financial aid works - not just at USC, but at virtually all universities, those posters see it as unfair. Another poster claimed that USC had not given her a Cal Grant. The California Student Aid Commission handles the Cal Grant - not USC. Another poster here was upset they received only a $3,000 grant (a new applicant, not a continuing student), but if you check the posting history, that person had a FAFSA EFC of $40,000 and home equity of $700,000. He has a legitimate future difficulty in his family, and USC said they would reevaluate his need when his father was unable to work. It does not sound as though those students were “screwed” by USC financial aid.</p>
<p>I reread Nester’s post, and found nothing condescending.</p>
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<p>Your assertion that because someone has a picture on FaceBook, anything they say cannot be questioned seems na</p>
<p>Alamemom: you are a voice of reason in this hysteria. I agree that in most cases these kids are refusing to face the fact that their income changed, a sibling graduated, etc. It may seem to them that they should still pay as little as they were but that’s not how it works. Just because you WANT them to keep giving you the same amount doesn’t mean its fair. It is really tough to pay for college when your parents are in the mid to upper middle class – you make too much for aid but not enough to shell out $50,000. But USC is phenomenal about doing their best to make it work. In my case, they gave us a generous amount to begin with. Then my mother’s income was cut 20% indefinitely due to the economy and we had some medical bills. USC came back with another $10,000 in grants. Its costing me less to go to USC than Berkeley where I was also accepted. Its wrong to blast USC without providing full details on why your grants and aid were reduced.</p>
<p>I am a parent. A recap…
Middle income. No change.
Two in college.
Fair package for two years.
Dramatic change junior year.
Checked into monthly payment. A few thousand dollars. I am not giving specifics on a public board. I think it is best to be as anonymous as possible.
I assume if this has happened to us, it has also happened to others. (That’s why I asked earlier if anyone had heard the formula had been changed)
I am hoping to hear something very soon. I don’t know why aid was changed or I would say so. Hopefully USC will tell me.</p>
<p>We love USC. It makes me sad that this has happened.</p>
<p>Rosieoney–I am very happy that you have had a great outcome.</p>