How Good Is USC's Financial Aid REALLY?

GudMornin
Sun, 24 Apr 2016 16:29:47 +0000

Like everyone said, financial aid depends on a myriad of factors. The NPC is simplified and doesn’t take into account a variety of other factors that’d be indicated on FAFSA/CSS. Now with that warning in mind, here’s how accurate the NPC was for me:

USC’s NPC predicted I’d have an estimated net price of $14,500. After loans and work-study, the net cost would be $6,500

In reality my financial aid package got me an estimated net price of $15000. After loans and work-study, the net cost would be $7,000

In my case, the NPC was off by $500 which is still pretty accurate. However, my family’s financial situation is pretty simple. USC’s financial aid office was the least generous out of the colleges I got into (Brown was cheaper by $1K, JHU was cheaper by $4K) but the aid I received was still good enough to make USC realistically affordable for me and my family.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case for everyone. USC seems to do a great job at helping out low-income students but once you reach the middle/upper-middle income bracket, the generosity starts to decline (as is the case for most schools).

Don’t be like the many kids I saw on USC/NYU/Brown’s FB groups who were heartbroken when they received their financial aid packages. Always have backups in mind, even if you get into USC. The NPC can be accurate but only to a certain point, you never really know until you get that official financial aid package.

Still, I encourage you to apply to USC anyways and see how it ends up. I wish you the best of luck in the college admission process!