<p>Hi, so I'm in dilemma of choosing college from these two...
So I got 9k scholarship from UCLA that I only have to pay 4k for total cost of UCLA (including loans) and 13k for USC (only received tuition awards for 4 years)
I visited both and here are my thoughts</p>
<p>UCLA
Pros: I pay less, it has better campus (personal opinion), people more like me, more ap credits
Cons: Budget cuts affecting college, too much people in the classroom, curve competitions, getting classes, attention....</p>
<p>USC
Pros: Trustee follows tuition increase, personalized (than UCLA), Trojan Connections
Cons: Not as cheap, none of my friends is going, ghetto neighborhood</p>
<p>I mean I like both of them. Their EE program strengths are similar too. (Some say UCLA is better, others say USC is) Does UCLA offer good Co-op, internship, or study abroad programs like USC does? I haven't seen their booklet yet.. My goal is to get into MIT for graduate school and get PhD degree in EE. My parents in Korea thinks UCLA has a better reputation and it's cheaper, but USC is growing with large money and I'm hard to ignore trustee scholarships... We don't know what will happen to UC system after budget cuts.. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>UCLA COA is currently over $30K. With $9K in scholarship, you still have $21K (and rising?) per year. Isn’t USC’s full tuition/4 years much less $?</p>
<p>Both schools are about the same if you plan to work in SoCal. It’s not like you won’t be able to get a job if you go to either UCLA or USC. Either way, you will emerge from both schools with similar salaries and similar job opportunities. It’s not like a company will pay you more or less if you graduated from a particular school.</p>
<p>That being said, both UCLA’s and USC’s CoA will continue to rise each year due to the recession our economy is in. UCLA will suffer from CA budget cuts (since UCLA is funded by the CA government - obviously the government has been cutting down and will continue to cut down on education), but USC will suffer as less alumni are willing to donate as much (USC is private and relies on alumni donations and fundraising - the recession has affected everyone and people are less generous in donations since they need to take care of themselves too).</p>
<p>Regardless, 4k x 4 = 16k while 13k x 4 = 52k. Keep in mind, there’s a chance you may even stay for a 5th year if, by some chances, “things” happen in life. Add another 4k or even 13k.</p>
<p>Either way, I’d take the 16k > 52k debt considering both schools are about the same reputation and have a great network in Southern California and Los Angeles.</p>
<p>tomathist…are those grants based on finaid or will the $26K be consistent over the four years at UCLA? Are the scholarships also for each year?
If the grants are finaid, consider that they may be adjusted in subsequent years especially given the UCs’ possibly further budget cuts.</p>
<p>With the Trustee at USC, you have the guarantee that it will stay the same each year (as long as you fulfill the minimum GPA and credit #s requirements). Also, if USC’s tuition rises, the Trustee will too.</p>
<p>With everything else being pretty much equal, I think it may come down to your gut feeling. Can you visit both schools in the next 3 weeks, visit the departments, walk around, maybe talk to students/profs? See where you feel more comfortable?</p>
<p>Both are great schools …you can’t go wrong really.
Best of luck with your decision.</p>
<p>Despite the struggling economy USC alumni and friends donated generously to the university in 2010. You assumed contributions would be going down. </p>
<p>In 2010 according to figures by the Chronicle of Higher Education contributions to USC came in fourth in the nation, only surpassed by Stanford, Harvard and Johns Hopkins. Funds donated to USC were higher than at Yale, Princeton and MIT.</p>
<p>So far in the 2011 fiscal year–still in a recession–SC has had close to $400,000,000 already donated. Dr. Nikias has announced a major fundraising initiative to begin in September of 2011. The last all university drive ended in 2002.</p>
<p>the chances of tuition going up extremely drastically in your time at UCLA would be pretty minimal at best. Even if rose by 1k per year, and you needed to spend 7k your last year, you’d still only pay 22k which is still less than 52k.</p>
<p>they’re both fine institutions, but you clearly seem to enjoy one more than the other, and the one you enjoy more also costs less money. </p>
<p>in research for engineering they’re both pretty close in list of citations: UCLA (4) vs USC (8)</p>
<p>could doesn’t mean will. + the UCs have already taken several proactive measures to reduce their fees from continually rising such as reducing overhead in the UofC headquarters, taking more OOS students, increasing intellectual property, etc. I honestly think their doubling is pretty unlikely (it would be a political shiitstorm for the governor for litterally thousands of students to lose their access to higher quality education simply because fees have doubled) i think that was him just trying to pull a ‘worst-case-scenario’ type of thing. The UCs are not only among california’s most prestigious universities, but the system itself is probably the best public university system in the world. it’s not going to stop just because of budget cuts, they’ll get by, don’t you worry ;)</p>
<p>Increasing intellectual property? Please tell me more about that. I’d like to know what the UC Regents are doing differently.</p>
<p>Fun fact: Caltech is surpassed in number of patents only by the UC system – all UC schools combined.</p>
<p>By the way, the Regents will always stick it to the professional grad schools first. When I enrolled at Berkeley Law more than a decade ago, my in-state tuition was only $10k. Law school tuition is now $44,000.</p>
<p>apparently for many years, UCLA hasn’t really cared about its intellectual properties. I’m not too surprised though. Even if they could drastically increase their revenue from IP, it was never much of an issue since they got an asston of funding from california. However, since we all know that times have changed, so have their plans. </p>
<p>from the article i read, they used to pull in like $30M of year from patents, but with i guess the proper enforcement of their patents, they’re looking to increase that to $100M (which at least makes me wonder why the hell they didn’t do that earlier??)</p>
<p>additionally, UCLA is building at least two new dorm buildings, which i’m sure they’re planning to stuff with OOS students. I’m fairly certain that UCLA’s status and prestige will stay high despite california’s problems. </p>
<p>The most interesting thing will be to see what UCLA does after the budget deficit is solved. Californians will want their world reknown public universities back to the percentages that they were, whereas OOS students would much like to keep the admit rates to what they are now. The precedents are already being set to keep them what they are now, and keeping them at their current levels will only increase the prestige of the universities as well as their funds. It’ll be interesting to see what the regents decide to do on these matters. </p>
<p>If the Cal and UCLA eventually have systems that resemble Michigan, i’d bet they could break the top 15, in USNWR, and maybe the top 50, in forbes, within a decade.</p>
<p>So my fin aid got rearranged…
I have to pay 10k for USC, 12k for Berkeley, and 4k 4k for UCLA…
Does anyone know what kind of graduate schools USC graduates attend?
Also, do you think I can still still attend good graduate school for EE if I change my major to Biomed Engineering (Speciality in EE) ?</p>
<p>“Does anyone know what kind of graduate schools USC graduates attend?”
My Trustee son is starting his PHD in Geophysics at Cal Tech in Sept.He applied to 6 programs and was accepted at all 6. His house mate is going to Cambridge on a Churchill Fellowship for 1 year, then to Columbia for his Phd, where he will be studying Computational Mathematics.
Top USC students go everywhere for Grad School. The academic world has recognized much sooner than the general population the 1] incredible educational changes that have occurred, and are continuing to take place at USC, and the 2] exceptional abilities of USC Trustee Scholars, who have often turned down Ivys to go to USC.</p>
<p>^^ Meant to say this before–but congratulations to your S, menloparkmom! USC must be very proud of the achievements of guys like him and so many other outstanding grads. The honors, great grad school admissions, and job offers continue to pile up for each succeeding class. Hope our Class of 2012ers do as well.</p>
<p>I suggest you find out if there is a chance that you would end up staying at UCLA for 5 years for your degree because it may be hard to get all of your classes due to budget cuts.</p>
<p>As a graduating EE at USC, I can give you a bit of insight as to why I made the decision I did. The personalization, as you mentioned, meant a lot to me especially as I am originally from out of state I did not want to be a number, but an individual. In that sense USC is an excellent choice; the administrators and faculty truly want to see you succeed. I’ve been able to explore EE and really all of engineering to its fullest while still achieving a deep understanding of DSP ( my focus).</p>
<p>In terms of internships and grad schools, I have personally had no trouble. I spent my summers as follows: internship in EE back on the east coast, summer abroad through USC in Spain, internship with cisco in norcal. After graduation, I’m going to Stanford for graduate school. And if you want grad school, the opportunities for undergrads to be involved in research are seemingly unlimited! Professors are more than willing to help you get involved in their research labs.</p>
<p>As for the neighborhood, simply visit USC and you’ll see how misconstrued that reputation is. In 4 years I’ve never felt unsafe. Again, the decision is very individual, but I hope my experience helps you to make it an informed decision.</p>