<p>Because USC required various supplements that my parents were unable to fill out until now, I have just received my financial aid package.</p>
<p>It was by far one of the worst financial aid packages I have received.</p>
<p>Deans Scholarship (Fall 2010) $5,048
Deans Scholarship (Spring 2011) $5,048
University Scholarship (Fall 2010) $1,250
University Scholarship (Spring 2011) $1,250
Total Financial Aid $12,596</p>
<p>Estimated Total Amount Covered By Family
$33,612</p>
<p>My EFC is zero and my parents make less than $30,000 a year. Is this financial aid package reasonable? Did USC run out of money or were my forms sent in too late? Wasn't I suppose to get Pell Grants, Cal Grants, etc? did my parents fill out the forms incorrectly?</p>
<p>EDIT: I just noticed that I did not receive any grants. Aren't grants need-based? So I did fill something out incorrectly?</p>
<p>USC just doesn’t have the financial resources of the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, and Duke.
That’s why many student can’t really afford to attend USC even with financial aid.</p>
<p>If only scholarships are listed, they probably aren’t done with your FA package just yet. Only the scholarship I got showed up online for me, so I called and was told that they were still reviewing my application for need-based aid. You should call just to make sure, but this is most likely the case. It happened to a few others on here as well, and for some of them, their complete package was posted recently. My package hasn’t been updated yet though.</p>
<p>Did you submit the FAFSA, CSS/Profile, and Cal Grant application before their respective deadlines? Even if your parents were not able to fill out the info until now, you still should have submitted the FAFSA/CSS with estimates based on last year’s tax information (I have no idea how the Cal Grant one works).</p>
<p>Does your family have a large amount of money in assets? The FAFSA uses the simplified needs test, which does not ask about assets. The CSS/Profile, on the other hand, does take assets into account. Even if the FAFSA gave you a 0 EFC, your assets may have raised it.</p>
<p>If you do not have assets and submitted everything by the deadlines, then they probably have not finished putting your package together (especially since those federal grants aren’t there yet).</p>
<p>@IvyPBear
USC currently has an endowment of $2.7 billion. Granted, that’s not anywhere near HYS’s two-digit billion dollar endowments, but it’s one of the highest in the country. It’s on par with some of the other Ivies…
Some of those schools have no-loan FA policies, but otherwise I’m willing to bet in most cases a student would get just as much from USC as these schools, if deadlines and requirements are met.</p>
<p>@OP
I agree with mjang. Some kids on here were complaining about the same thing, but they ended up getting their final package (WITH need-based aid) a few days later. Scholarship recipients will only see scholarships listed first if their packages are not completed. If you’re still worried, call them.</p>
<p>If your FAFSA EFC is zero, you will at minumum get a full Pell and subs Stafford. If those items do not appear on your financial aid award, then it has not yet been completed. Did you receive an email saying your aid package was ready to be viewed? If not, then your package was not yet ready.</p>
<p>This same question has been posted over and over in the last three days, and each time it turned out the package was not complete. Did you try looking at other posts, doing a search or the tiniest bit of research before posting?</p>
<p>Please post corrected information when your package does appear.</p>
<p>On another thread the OP has posted that when his financial aid package was completed, he and his family were expected to contribute only $3,000, with the rest covered by financial aid.