^^ Ahh so that means they don’t use a “commuter COA”…I’ve been putting my foot in my mouth after all…
Ok, so if your parents can afford the housing but won’t pay/don’t consider it necessary, you still have some time to try to convince them. There’s studies about how living on campus helps you do better in school, show them a few of those. You could also try to trim the costs yourself: try applying to some of the alumni assoc. scholarships, see if some of the deadlines haven’t passed yet: https://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/docs/uscScholarships1516.pdf. You’ll have a $6,500 external scholarships limit as a sophomore, the amount of your stafford loans, before they decrease the grant. Combined with the stafford loan itself, this could make the costs more palatable to your parents.
If they simply cannot afford it at the end, all you can do is try to figure out an efficient commute for now. Later in the year you can apply for some of the scholarships above for next year’s costs, or maybe apply to be an RA.
By the way, you’re not required to get the $5,500 Cardinal meal plan as a sophomore. Getting only a partial meal plan and cooking the rest of the meals yourself (you’d live in an apartment as a soph, not in a dorm room) will save you about $2k a year.