I was recently accepted to both the Iovine and Young Academy at USC and Columbia College at Columbia University. After receiving both of my financial aid packages from the schools, I was BLOWN AWAY by how much USC expected me to pay compared to Columbia. It was almost 3 times as much. I would like to attend USC if at all possible, but I don’t know if the extra cost would be worth it. I am wondering if I have any options to change my financial aid at USC.
Do any of you have experience with appealing financial aid at USC? What would be the best way for me to go about doing this? Should I simply email the financial aid office? Any advice or help would be really, really appreciated.
My understanding is that the appeal process is for submitting new or changed information; asking FA to review the same information is unlikely to matter.
There are detailed instructions on USC’s website as to how to go about appealing one’s aid package. I’m not going to link for you, let your fingers do the walking.
There are lots of posts on CC from middle to upper middle class families like yours. It seems USC is just not giving the funding to this group. Same thing happened to my son. 4 other very good schools made him offers that make family cost $15,000 less per year than SC. I was super surprised and don’t know why they are so much higher, but he was leaning out of state anyway, so it made the decision easy.
It is worth a try, especially if USC is your preference. I do not know where you are from originally so don’t forget to consider travel expenses in weighing the cost of both programs. If you are from California the flights to and from the east coast several times a year (holiday prices) can add up. In approaching the financial aid office just ask them if they will reconsider your financial aid package. Perhaps the FAFSA does not give a true picture of your family’s financial situation. If that is true, say so. Maybe your family had some unexpected events ($) last year or this year that have not been taken into account. Despite USC’s reputation as being a school for rich kids, they are “need blind” for admissions and do offer quite a bit of financial assistance to families that really need it. There are just a lot of families that really need it (families that earn less per year than the cost of 1 year at the school). I know this from personal experience. Do contact them though!
USC doesn’t rely strictly on FAFSA. They look at Need Access or CSS forms which give more detailed information not included on FAFSA. FAFSA most likely used to determine fed loan eligibility
I have a couple of thoughts - I don’t think they ignore middle class families. But I’ll confess to being surprised by size of our required contribution. I think the invention of Parent Plus loans which allow a family to borrow the cost of attendance regardless of ability to pay has changed the climate a bit at a lot o colleges. My daughter’s second choice was similar.
The most coveted programs such as Iovine, Film, etc. have only a few slots and a lot of applicants. So there isn’t a huge incentive for the school to provide a lot of up front support. I’m sure they could fill those slots with full-pays. And USC has always been conservative with aid, outside of the competitive merit scholarships . It’s supply and demand. The supply side is small. The demand side for USC in general and it’s specialized programs specifically is enormous.
I will say were behind our student’s decision to attend 100% after we got over the sticker shock. It’s been a good decision for us. But I know each family will have to make their own decision. Good luck.
Honestly - with so many good offers, you can’t make a bad choice.