<p>I received a significant amount of aid from USC, and I currently owe them around $13,000 for the 2012-2013 school year (I am an incoming freshman).</p>
<p>I've been working extremely hard all year filling out scholarship applications and have currently received around $7,500 in scholarships and am still waiting to hear back from a couple others.</p>
<p>Some wording on the USC fin aid page caught my eye though. If I update my financial aid page and include all the outside scholarships I have received, will the amount of money I get from USC this year go down so in the end, I will still be required to pay the $13,000?</p>
<p>(ex: I received $30,000 in university grant. Would they make that grant lowered to $23,000 because I earned $7,000 in outside awards?</p>
<p>I am not sure that 2manykids is correct. I had the same situation when I was an incoming freshman. From my process going through the financial aid you report your scholarships on the uscconnect portal. This will give you an updated financial aid package to expect from them when they disperse the money to your account. My grant has never been lowered because of my outside scholarships, however they go lower the amount you can take out in your parent plus loan and student loans in order to add up to their “Cost of Attendance” number. They usually lower these first before taking any grant money away, </p>
<p>However, I would contact the financial aid office a 213-740-1111 to double check what will happen. When you update on uscconnect though you should be able to see within a few days how they update your financial aid. </p>
<p>This is just from my experience with financial aid in the past two years.</p>
<p>Freshman year I had a University Grant, and no loans besides Stafford loans. I got an outside scholarship, and they reduced my University Grant by the amount that I was awarded. As I had no other loans, it what beastlyb87 says may be correct. However, USC definitely does reduce grant money amount if you get external scholarships.</p>
<p>Uh oh. That’s definitely not good. Thanks for all the responses!! I’ll probably call them tomorrow (if they answer, because they never seem to!) and see what the deal is with outside scholarships. :(</p>
<p>Does anybody know if I have to report the amount of scholarship money regardless of whether I have received it yet or not? Or should I wait until they send the money to the school?</p>
<p>From what I hear from FinAid, use of outside scholarships may depend on how much you receive in grants. If you have 45K in grants, the scholarships will go straight to pay down grants. If receive a small amount in grants, you may be able to keep the grant(s) and use the scholarships.</p>
<p>I have the same issue, I called yesterday and was told outside scholarships would reduce my grant. I received a 30,000 grant and total I owe 15,000 for 2012-2013. I was hoping I could just pay off that 15,000 EFC with outside scholarships, but I guess I can’t. I was set on USC however this greatly effects my decision because it will be cheaper for me to go to UT now. Throughout the entire process I’ve become close with a lot of admissions counselors, so I’m probably going to ask my rep to email financial aid or something. I’m going to try my best to personally negotiate with my financial aid counselor to use outside scholarships to reduce my loans and EFC first. If that doesn’t work then I’ll let them know I’m sorry but i’m going elsewhere:(</p>