Just got my financial aid summary and they’re literally giving me $0. My parents make about $150-160k before tax, so it’s about over half their income; it’s completely unaffordable unless I take out >100k in loans. It’s ridiculous how blatantly this school values sports, crazy architecture, administrator salaries, etc. over helping their students afford the school. Especially in light of the recent admissions scandal, it really shows that USC is only really benefiting their richest students—the ones who least benefit from this quality of education.
I’ll call them to see if there’s been a mistake, but not expecting much.
Assuming your parents also have a home? As a CSS school this is included as something that could be used to pay for school. And compared to others that get aid, that is riches. Transfer students tend to get less aid as well. Also, students don’t have to apply or expect to attend one of the most expensive schools in the country, there are other options. Your rant about sports and architecture makes me believe this isn’t the school for you anyway. You posted you have these options: UCSC for 34k, UDub for 51k or URochester for 57k. Those are all good choices for a lot less. UCSC would be good choice for CS and the price.
Assets count too. Do your parents have substantial assets? A vacation or rental home? Also note that the expectation is not that they’d pay 100% out of current income. The expectation is that there’d be college savings, you’d take the federal loans, and the rest would come from current income. Also keep in mind that at that income your family earns more than 94% of all households in the United States.
Also to add to this BS, USC hasn’t given me information, or even an estimate of how many of my courses will transfer (there’s no public articulation history for transfers from my school, and the information they’ve given me doesn’t tell what will count for my major). So I have no idea how long it would take me to graduate unless I pay the $300 deposit. I’ve emailed, called, and even bugged in person several people about this, with no luck. Also, they gave me two weeks to accept their offer, but only just gave me my financial aid information half a week before the deadline to submit the deposit.
Many families with incomes in the $150,000-$200,000 range need to pay careful attention to the cost of education, and limit their choices of schools to schools that will be affordable. Sometimes this means in-state public schools. Sometimes this means schools where good financial aid is possible, whether need based or merit based. Sometimes there are individual reasons why other specific schools are affordable.
Do you have other more affordable options? To me spending $78,000 per year for USC seems to be something to avoid, particularly if you need to take on debt to pay for it. >$100,000 of debt to me seems to be a bad idea unless you are getting a medical doctorate along with this much debt.
Can you speak with an academic adviser and review your transcript before depositing? Because of the delay waiting for FA you could also ask for an extension of the deposit deadline
I wish I can say congratulations. You have handled your finances very well. Seriously, what I experienced from other USC freshmen families in our school is that, if your home equity is high even if your home is valued at $300k, have reasonable bank savings, and have stock investments, you will pay more than someone who earns over $250k/year, just bought a $2 million home, have large debt, travel worldwide for vacation, spend freely, and not having any savings at all.
Unfortunately, this is how the system works today in almost all colleges. Unfair. Isn’t it? I help the poor as much as I can but this system helps those who are richer than us. We are basically subsidizing the education of some of these rich familes who do not practice fiscal responsibility.
We are in the same boat. I got less than $3,000 aid compared to my sons classmate who got over $30,000 in aid who live in luxury and style but have huge debt.
@brantly@blueskies2day yeah my parents have a home worth 1M. We’re in the bay area though, it’s the least expensive/smallest home in the area, and no vacation homes/other assets. I am very aware that we’re privileged on paper, but I live in an area where 100k can qualify for low income and avg rent is $3.6k for a studio, and my dad has to stay here to be close to his job. it’s not like they can just sell their house I’m considering getting married for independent status though
@blueskies2day I’m fine staying at UC Santa Cruz! Also, was only mentioning about sports and architecture bc I wanted to make the point that they had excess money to spend on students. I applied to 4 UCs (which all rejected me) in addition to USC, and was in no way expecting to attend, but I thought a school like USC would give me the best opportunities out of all of them—UCSC is affordable but there’s major issues with a housing crisis, overcrowding (all the classes I needed for my major were taken before I could even enroll, and bc of this many can’t graduate on time) and I’ve heard most UCs have similar issues. My CS professors also barely teach so I’m not getting a good education—all in all, CS at UCSC has been a not so great time
@DadTwoGirls yeah, there’s no way I’m taking on that debt. I’m going to stay at UC Santa Cruz (which even gave me $1200/year in aid and it costs wayyyy less), unless I get off the waitlist at UC Berkeley (but not betting on it).
I don’t know about you but you can’t afford college then that a problem for almost everyone. College is meant only for people who can actually pay crazy amounts per year nothing will change until the people do something about it.
No, there are plenty of schools that are far cheaper than $80 K per year. Our local community college, as well as 2 state colleges within 20 minutes drive, are under $8K per year.
