<p>What is a typical amount of grant aid? Is there a limit on how much they can give out? </p>
<p>Also can you get USC grants if you also got Cal Grants?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>I think the avg grant is around 19,000
I don't think there is a limit but obviously they don't have unlimited money. This is why you may have more loans than another person even w/ similar EFC's.
Your EFC will pretty much determine what you end up with.
If your EFC is low enough you can still get a USC grant as well as a cal grant.</p>
<p>According to Princeton Review:</p>
<p>Aid Statistics
Freshmen receiving need-based financial aid: 44%
Undergraduate receiving need-based financial aid: 45%
Average freshman loan: $3,756
Average freshman total need-based gift aid: $18,919</p>
<p>my grant was around that size...along with my merit scholarship, my total aid package came out to around $27,000. that was enough for me to choose USC over state schools, where my dad's veterans' assistance would have covered my tuition. granted...i'll still have to pay more to attend USC, but not considerably more.</p>
<p>Sometimes you could drown in the grant money USC gives out. My grant is almost $35,000.</p>
<p>jesus, how did that happen? In a year where I was the only one working in my family, making 17k/year, my grants totalled only 12k. Every scholarship I got dented my grant amount, too.</p>
<p>really? my family made about 25K. Call the fin aid office and talk to them. that's gotta be an error</p>
<p>it's not just income, it's assets. they take your EFC and adjust it to include home equity. low income isn't enough if you have high assets (they don't consider debt as an offset).</p>
<p>Still though, my folks own two businesses and have been developing several acres of real estate outside of Glaicer National Park into cabins. I'd still call their office</p>
<p>A couple of years too late to bother... and I appealed the decision at the time anyway. But if they don't consider debt as an offset, that would be the reason- my parents were in a very expensive house that they'd barely begun making payments on. So if they counted a house as an asset without counting the debt of the mortgage on it (doesn't that sound like the stupidest thing ever, though?), then that could make them look pretty well off on paper.</p>