<p>my parents would never let me attend community college and didn’t even allow me to apply to CSUs.</p>
<p>Since the job market in Calif has been bad for a few years now, your dad’s recent unemployment should have been anticipated as a possible problem. Your dad also has been very aware of his age - *my father is already close enough to retirement age that it’s difficult for him to find jobs, *</p>
<p>Yes, it is unlikely that you could borrow what you need since you’d need your parents to co-sign and they are a credit risk now that they are unemployed.</p>
<p>You need to sit down with your parents. THEY either need to come up with a workable solution to pay for USC (like work themselves to death), or come up with another solution.</p>
<p>You may have to take a gap year. If you need to apply for scholarships, then don’t take CC classes this year. You need to apply as an incoming freshmen to have the best scholarship opportunities. </p>
<p>Your home equity doesn’t count for FAFSA. I don’t know if USC considers home equity in its own calculations.</p>
<p>Of course, if your parents sell their home and get a bunch of cash from that, you still may not qualify for aid.</p>
<p>I have called our FA office again, and they have told me that they will try their best, but my parents are all for waiting for at least a semester (now about 10K in loans-i received a generous gift from my godmother, and recalculated after being credited with my grants). After asking for some clarification, my parents did have money saved, but had to continually use the money for problems that came up such as our deck nearly collapsing and needing an emergency remodel, my dad needing eye surgery, etc, and my dad has been unemployed before. He has spent the last 5 years working abroad in China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam… I saw him about once a year, tech jobs here were getting harder to come by…there were about 2 or 3 years before that when he was unemployed. We still have a bit of savings little left, but I don’t know if my parents are planning to put that toward my education or not. They haven’t really told me much, but I do know that we do not have 34K saved up. I was not saying that we cannot pay ANY of it, just that it is much more of an issue now. Our house is actually not very large, Annika, it was expensive because of the school district, which is considered one of the best in the state I think, if not the country. And I know for a fact that for a good period of time, an uncle with a gambling problem basically guilted my parents out of a significant amount of money, and my parents never talk about it, but he took enough that we had to move into our current house, much smaller than the one we had before. That may have been where some of our savings went. And my parents were planning on using the money from selling our house to pay for our education, even though it will raise our EFC. Again, thanks for the responses, I have actually been able to secure a loan for the first semester, and will discuss things with my FA counselor as soon as I get on campus.</p>
<p>When I said “big house,” it was a generic, catch-all term for whatever adults do with their money that is within the range of middle-class parents over-reaching. If the “big house” is actually a small house that is too expensive because it is in a “good school district” then bingo! that is exactly what I meant.</p>
<p>What still remains troublesome is that your parents are broke, your dad is unemployed and ready to retire, and in spite of MAJOR changes in the family’s financial status, you and your parents are marching ahead with Plan A, which consists primarily of crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.</p>
<p>Keep an eye toward cheaper schools that you can transfer to in the next year or two. You may need to make a quick exit from your school at some point when funds completely run out. I am not confident that this house of cards can stand for all four years, and your sister is truly going to get the short end of this stick at this rate. </p>
<p>Even after your financial aid shifts to accommodate your parent’s new lowered income level, your school may still be unaffordable in the big scheme of things.</p>
<p>I may be off base here, so feel free to ignore. As a transplant to California I was shocked to learn that most Californians do not attempt to find schools out-of-state. I mention this because with the state in so much fiscal trouble right now, you might have a lot more luck finding funding out of state. </p>
<p>Your success at landing financing is based on your academics, but assuming that is mostly in order, then take the time off and use it to research great academic schools with a better financial package for next year out of state. There are lots to choose from.</p>
<p>BTW, I came from some good east coast schools and looked at california cc’s with disdain. It was a mistake. There are many ways to use these schools to your advantage, including finding schools with transfer agreements in place. Do all your non-major work for low cost and transfer to a “better” school to finish up at the higher price. It still costs, but you might chop two yrs off your bill. If you’re fixated on staying in CA, then by cc’ing your GE’s you can seriously save some bucks.</p>
<p>As I mentioned before, we were and still are a family that is precariously paying for college for our kids out of a large income due to a high paying job. That income is mitigated by long term life style choices we made in terms of neighbor, big house, quality medical care, education k-12, cultural experiences, grandmother issues, quality of life, high cost of living area. I recognize fully that these are choices we made that are compromising our ability and flexibility in terms of paying for college for our kids along with many other things.</p>
<p>Loss of job is something that would be a huge blow to any college plans. We would not be able to draw into past earnings since they would be needed for living expenses. We would not have the current earning, obviously with job loss. And taking out loans, what I call spending future earnings is also curtailed since paying back the loan, if it can even be drawn is compromised. So I can see what happened with this family.</p>
<p>By taking gap year, the OP and parents can assess what the financial future may show more clearly. A job loss is a trauma that needs a time for all to think clearly. Perhaps another job is is possible. Maybe not. We ran into a similar situation and when H was in the throgs of depression from the situation, he felt he would never find work that paid enough to pay our bills. But he did even in the dire economic times. But the event did give us a warning of how easily our financial status quo could be threatened and that we needed to shore up our financial crisis plans and rethink a lot of our priorities, including educational expenditure. </p>
<p>With another year, things like sale of the house, reexaminaton of the assets and budgets, the lowered income will all come into play. USC does have decent fin aid, doesn’t it? At the beginning of the fin aid season there is usually a lot more flexibility than at the end when only the dregs of funds are left. If the OP keeps up a correspondence with the fin aid officers and tries to work things out, perhaps some affordable, workable arrangement can be made for next year. The EFC would also more clearly show the financial situation since the job loss is current. Though it is understood that the income from the prior year is what is supposed to fund the subsequent year of college, for most families it does not work that way. If Dad or Mom is unemployed this current year, or is disabled or dies, to say that the money for the current year education should have been settled the year before just doesn’t work out for most families. We do live in real time, at best when it comes to paying bills.</p>
<p>“Why would anyone think that they could pay out $3k per month for college for 4 years, yet not have been able to say anything for college over the last 18 years?”</p>
<p>First, past earning may not have been as high (OP mentioned job changes/unemployment in the past) as current earnings. If unemployment did not happen, certainly 1K a month may be found by belt tightening and extra income not available in the past. Another 5-10K may be found in not contributing to retirement and savings not having a child at home and/or tax credits. Another 1 K can be borrowed against future earnings, retirement nest egg (our family saved more than what is needed to help with college loans), savings in down-sizing an empty nest. </p>
<p>I certainly see how OP’s family would find it possible if not for the loss of job. As CPT mentioned, few of us would find college for our kids fully funded if we lost a job.</p>
<p>*We still have a bit of savings little left, but I don’t know if my parents are planning to put that toward my education or not. *</p>
<p>If your dad is likely to be unemployed for awhile, it would be silly for your family to spend their precious remaining savings for USC. They will need that money to live on.</p>
<p>This is one of those examples where a student only has her eyes on one thing…getting onto the campus of her choice for the first semester of freshman year - even though all the signs are there that there won’t be enough money for the second year - or maybe even the second semester. The sad thing is that if and when she has to transfer to a less expensive school, she may be transferring to a school that would have given her a generous merit scholarship if she had arrived as a freshman.</p>
<p>I am going to assume that your parents are immigrants and that they feel very bad they cannot do the best for you. All that is good, but the best time to cut your losses are the beginning, not in the middle. Miracles can happen, your father can get a better job, you might win the lottery, but it never does any good to plan based on wishful thinking. I know that this not the advice your parents want. May be you should have your parents read this forum.</p>