<p>I just got accepted today and I was wondering when does the Financial Aid package usually come? Does USC give a generous amount or is it very stingy?</p>
<p>You should get your FA any day now. Watch your email and check the online OASIS site if you have access. And your mail box of course. USC is known for being very generous, but no one is happy all the time about everything, so there are some contrary opinions.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. @op, do you have access to the financial aid planner on your oasis account?</p>
<p>USC's finaid is really dependent on your income. I come from a poor family (FAFSA EFC is $0). As a junior I currently receive over $40,000/year in GRANTS. I have no loans, and for the remainder of the cost-of-attendance I work as an RA, which covers my room and board.</p>
<p>I was originally worried that USC was going to dramatically decrease my grant money and increase loans after my first 2 years, but I was pleasantly surprised. They even increased my grants to cover the tuition hike.</p>
<p>that is such an amazing relief wasabi. i too have a 0 efc and one of my teachers blatantly told me today that the scholarship they gave me would be my only source of fin aid from them.. scared me for a minute, but i realized he was wrong.</p>
<p>question for you though. because your total cost is mostly in grants, how is that taken care of pertaining to paying each semester? is it automatically charged to your account or how does that work for you?</p>
<p>If you are poor, the financial aid is great. If you are middle-class, you get raped (excuse my crudeness) because of the way the system is set up. The school's population is made up of a lot of really rich kids and a lot of lower income kids but quite few in the middle.</p>
<p>thanks guys. good to hear that jose - i too have an EFC of 0</p>
<p>@ 12layla12</p>
<p>Basically, when you get you finaid statement it'll have two columns, one for fees and one for money credited to your student account.</p>
<p>Initially they'll put the $18,000 (or whatever the tuition is) in the fees category, and then directly after that in the "credit" column you'll have all your grants, loans, etc.</p>
<p>This means that when you get your billing statement it will already have the grants factored in. Note that the reason why I currently attend for free is because I have an RAship, which further complicates things. During my freshman and sophomore years it was necessary for me to take out some loans (about $5,000 for each year). Still, considering that my finaid statement for next year will probably be the same as this year, getting a USC education with only $10,000 in loans is not a bad deal.</p>
<p>I think we won't be seeing Financial Aid Awards until next week. Just an educated guess since I received the following notice from USC both by email and regular mail indicating that they will be sending out awards in Mid March:</p>
<p>"Due to the large volume of documents submitted to our office in the last 3-4 days, you may have received a busy signal when attempting to fax documents to us. We apologize for the inconvenience and have taken steps to increase our fax capacity. If you have not yet submitted all necessary documents, please fax them to us as soon as possible. Funding is still available. We will begin notifying admitted students of their financial aid eligibility in mid-March.</p>
<p>To check your document status, please visit USC</a> Financial Aid. Click on "My Financial Aid & Documents" and log in. If you submitted documents within the past few days, your record should be updated to include them no later than Monday, March 16.</p>
<p>Financial aid counselors are available in person, by e-mail and by phone to answer any questions you might have. For contact information, please refer to USC</a> Financial Aid - Contact Us.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Financial Aid Office
University of Southern California"</p>
<p>Is the EFC number that USC says you can pay, usually bigger or smaller than the FAFSA number?</p>
<p>sfgiants,
According to the financial aid information about 60% of the enrolled students at SC are receiving financial aid. Approximately 20% of the fall 2008 freshman class received merit scholarships.<br>
The university has increased financial aid funding this year by 8%.</p>
<p>coollege- USC uses the FAFSA and the CSS Profile numbers. The CSS Profile I beleive takes things like home equity into account. I think the USC EFC number could be potencially bigger than the FAFSA from what I understand.</p>
<p>I contacted the Financial Aid Office today and they are indicating that financial awards are not expected until the first week of April. I previously speculated that they might be out next week but apparently not until April 1st.</p>
<p>Hmm that's not fair! I'm tired of waiting!!! March sucks.</p>