<p>Hello, my daughter is researching this on campus this week but I thought I'd check here and see if anyone has a quick answer.</p>
<p>Last spring, as with everyone else, we paid a $400 housing deposit to reserve her dorm room for this year. My understanding is that this works like a security deposit and will be refunded sometime this spring.</p>
<p>How and when is the deposit returned to us? Do they cut you a check at the very end of the semester after inspecting the room? Can it perhaps be rolled over into being a deposit for next year's room, or does that not work because they can't tell you if you'll get it back till the end of the year? </p>
<p>I'm kind of surprised they don't credit your spring account with this amount -- in essence, you have to come up with another $400 for the year, which is a bit of a challenge on a tight budget (grin) -- but I guess that's because they want to be able to keep it if you damage your room.</p>
<p>I wish they would at least acknowledge this is on the books in some way on the OASIS billing. The OASIS billing is about my only complaint about USC :) ; it's not always been as organized or informative as we would like.</p>