<p>To Alamemom-You are right that the California students will have difficult choices. However, USC takes a lot of international students plus students from all over the U.S. Therefore, it seems reasonable that there will be a lot of applicants. I live on the East coast and am confused by what is really going on in California. Despite the real estate foreclosure mess, and some drop in real estate prices, real estate (at least in good to excellent locations), are still amazingly high. Please feel free to correct this point of view: I still sense that many Californians have tons of money in million dollar plus houses, have high paying jobs (how else can you afford to live in California?), and can afford USC tuition (unless you lost your jobs, left all your savings in down stock market).
Are there really that many Californians who would choose state schools (when the California state budget has terrible problems) over USC? Has the recession in the U.S. really hurt California?</p>