Has anyone successfully appealed the financial aid they received for this upcoming school year?
Are you still at Chapman or did you transfer to GW? If the length of time you have to attend will make or break whether or not USC is affordable maybe you should stay where you are instead of heading to CA. A midyear junior transfer is likely to need more than 3 semesters to graduate, so make sure you understand how many courses you’ll need to take there.
My daughter will be a senior in the fall, and she still has not received her financial aid summary. They usually arrive during May. So they are clearly backed-up in the financial aid office dealing with so many appeals and updates as to families’ changing incomes, financial conditions, etc. We all have no other option but to be patient and hope for the best. Good luck…
I appealed and got an increase (about 10%?). I had some uncompensated medical expenses and other expenses that they deducted from my income.
Here’s an interesting recent email from the head of Financial Aid…
July 14, 2020
Dear Students,
Many of you have reached out to us with financial concerns about the coming year. This pandemic has uprooted so many lives and created so much economic devastation in our communities. The challenges are real, and we are doing our best to address your concerns and to keep up with an evolving situation.
For most of you, it has been difficult to plan for the year ahead without knowing where you will be living in the fall. With COVID cases on the rise in Los Angeles, there continues to be uncertainty in our fall plans, and we realize that is a particular challenge to students receiving financial aid.
As explained in our recent letters on aid packages, we did not include room and board costs yet, because we cannot calculate your total financial aid package until your housing plans are finalized.
We are addressing these expenses now and your full package will be adjusted to cover room and board once your housing plans are finalized, in the following ways:
Students who would have received financial aid for room and board, but who have decided to live at home due to COVID – will receive an Undergraduate Living-at-Home Scholarship in the amount of $4,000 for the fall semester and $4,000 for the spring semester if you remain at home.
Students who plan to continue living in USC housing – we are in close communication with the Housing office and will automatically increase your financial aid award to the maximum amount based on need. For those who have chosen to cancel their contracts, we have already refunded everyone’s confirmation fee ($800). For those students who are considering cancelling their contracts, they may do so at any time and your full application fee ($55) will be refunded.
Students in non-USC (off-campus) housing who are not living with parents or relatives – will receive an increase in cost of attendance and financial aid award once you provide necessary documentation (rental or lease agreement). Your financial aid award will automatically be increased to the maximum amount based on need. Many of you have already submitted your documentation, and we are working hard to process your award.
Thank you for your patience as we re-process thousands of financial aid packages. Our goal is to have these updates completed by August 3 for students in confirmed USC housing and those who have submitted their non-USC rental or lease agreement by July 24.
Another financial concern we want to address involves your technology needs, including connecting online and accessing a computer. If you need help in these areas, please contact Student Basic Needs at basicneeds@usc.edu. They can assist with WiFi access and/or loan laptops to students in need.
We’re all in this together, as one Trojan Family. We are listening to your concerns and will be in touch with updates as we have them. In the meantime, information can be found on the Financial Aid site. Please stay safe and well.
Sincerely,
Thomas McWhorter, Dean of Financial Aid
After a lengthy process with lots of new forms and documentation, the net result from our appeal/review process was $1470 less due in total versus last year as an expected family contribution. It is not all that we had hoped for, but oh well. At least it did not go up any. In these troubled times, we will take what we can get in terms of assistance.
And thankfully we are now done with the FA process forever as a family.
Good luck to those of you still waiting for your final FA summary for 2020-21. Hopefully the final #s work for you.
We appealed for D (incoming freshmen) and they said , “we can’t give you aid but here are a list of scholarships you can apply for…”
She was awards some nice scholarships based on that. Not sure if they’ll change each yr but we’ll take it.