Financial Aid at USC

ranganz
Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:43:02 +0000

The Michigan Education Trust is a plan which pays for tuition for public colleges in Michigan (JJ227 I believe we are talking about the same thing). It can be transferred to out of state schools, but then you only get the average value of tuition of all Michigan public schools (which is about 70% of UM tuition I think). The way our plan works is that my brother gets 2 years of it, while I get 2 years paid off. But you can transfer between siblings. So my family worked out a deal in which my brother gets all the money from MET (4 yrs tuition) for UMich, and then any money my father can pay goes to me (about 12,000/year hopefully). This way, the MET money is optimized for UMich, but my brother and I still recieve roughly the same amount. Remember, my mom can’t pay a cent right now (she doesnt have a job/ is deep in debt right now paying morgage and other things), so thats the way things are. Unfortunately, my parents have not been saving smart at all (neither of them have any noticeable savings). I hate bashing my parents, since I love them to death, but both of them have extremely poor money management skills. Prior to this whole college thing I have never really thought about finances and college funding (huge mistake on my part). I was too busy with my own life to notice their financial issues (MISTAKE), and until recently havent noticed how bad things really are. But now, it is seemingly too late. At least my dad can contribute something (12,000/year) but it isnt nearly enough. My poor mother is too deep in debt to help. So now we are in a huge hole; parents have basically no savings, and college is fast approaching.

As far as programs go, USC is much better for what I want to study: I’m looking to go into video game design, or if not international relations (both programs USC is tremendous in). With its Southern California location, it is connected to all the best video game companies. So in that sense, yes USC would be a lot better. UMich wouldn’t be that bad as I would be studying Film there (thats the program I applyed to), but I’d rather go to USC.

As far as parents go, I am fairly close to both parents. But if I had to choose it would be my dad, since he has been alone in SoCal for a long time now, and if I go to USC then my brother will still be at UMich to keep my mom company (essentially we are splitting down the middle, me with dad and my brother with mom).

I know I will have to struggle with the way things are; I (along with my brother) fully expect to take student loans and be in debt after college. But I cant do it if the debt is too much. And if I get lots of loans to make up the EFC difference from USC, I simply can’t afford it. I mean, if USC gives mostly grants to to make up the EFC difference (remember, my EFC is 23,000), then ill take out a 11,000/yr loan (44,000 total, which is relatively managable) to cover the difference between my EFC and how much I’m actually gonna get from my family. Otherwise, it may be impossible for me to go to USC. Also, one personal thing is that I do not want to transfer anywhere, I wish to attend college in one place for 4 years.

Again, my heart is dead set on California. I’ve always loved USC (all my life basically), I even did a summer program there last summer and was absolutely enthralled. I feel like I would be a perfect fit there as well. It has everything I want in a college. But stupid me never bothered to really care about the financial aspect of it, so now I feel like I may be barred from following my dreams…

Really though, thanks for everything guys. I really appreciate the support.