AAA was huge for mine and very sorry to see it go. Allowed them to double major easily in 4 years for a lot less! One could have even finished in 3 1/2 semesters with a double major, but did a full time internship his last semester while just taking 6 hours. And exceptional funding saved a ton on summer classes which are quite pricey considering their condensed schedule. These programs definitely saved money and time to completion, particularly for double majors. Ouch.
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Right, Michigan is close to $90K OOS (tuition and expenses) ! NYU is $100K !!
tldr: they can charge as much as they want. There will be more than enough families who can afford it.
Long version: Well, just think about it. There will likely always be more than 3,000 households of qualified students world wide who have the financial means to pay just about any price to attend USC and other elite private schools. So from a pure business point of view of the university, the sky’s the limit on tuition. They can jack up the price of tuition as high as they desire and then be able to accept a certain number of students from economically disadvantaged households for whom they offer a full scholarship.
As a result, the student body of these “elite” private institutions will become increasingly comprised of kids from extremely wealthy families and kids from very impoverished families. Those of us in the “middle” will be left to compete for admission to public schools in our state of residence or to lesser-known private schools. And in many states, the sky-high cost of education at the elite private schools has only made competition for admission to the public schools much more intense. So once again, kids from the “middle” of the socio-economic demographic will be disadvantaged.
The entire structure of higher education in the US is completely screwed up. In no other fully developed country do families have to deal with such a high cost to get a college education.
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Because it’s a USC thread.
what do you mean by their grad students? They only have to pay one or two years and then onward to employment, right? or are you saying the alumni network is not enough to help them get work after their Master degree to pay back their loan?
I originally posted the article in the USC Fall 2024 applicant thread. There were so many responses that the Forum Champion moved it to its own thread.
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Regardless of the final decision, good luck to your students in the next few weeks - hope they all find the place that fits them best in many many ways - and that gives parents that great feeling of peace of mind. 
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UC prices are not apples to apples since they include ~$3600 in health insurance (that many students will waive). The USC numbers quoted upthread don’t.
[At our high school] I’ve not seen any instate students choose USC over UCLA if they got into both, which in itself seems very rare. USC dangles the scholarship possibilities to attract plenty of applicants, but doesn’t seem to admit many instate students who they expect to get into UCLA or UCB, presumably for yield protection reasons.
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My CA student was admitted to both UCLA and Cal and chose USC. USC awarded my student a merit scholarship.
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When my D went to USC many parents had said they were Bruin alums and their kids got into both schools and chose USC. So it does sometimes happen.
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My spouse is a UCLA alum and I’m a Cal alum. Our student is attending USC on a merit scholarship.
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Not true. My son and 2 of his friends, all in-state, got into UCLA and USC. All choose USC with no merit over UCLA. UCLA does not have an undergraduate business school. Although less expensive, it didn’t make sense to us to send our son to a school that didn’t offer his major. But yes, in-state kids do choose USC over the public schools.
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I had two get into UCLA and one of them also got into UCB (both engineering), they attended USC.
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I had two get into UCLA and/or UCB in engineering (and USC). And another in a liberal arts major and a USC athlete (no brainer, USC all the way on that one). Lots of kids, lots of money on college, so we were really looking, it wasn’t just a USC or bust approach at that time (except for the athlete). UCLA is gorgeous and a great school, no question. UCB has an amazing reputation, (although not a fan of the campus), but for us, it all came down to a few key factors that pushed us to USC:
- We like private education. Did public schools up to high school then went private. So we learned the difference there and liked what we paid for.
- Being able to change majors (nearly impossible at some publics) and the ease to double major and/or add a minor. One of mine changed majors 5 times (yes 5 times, her advisor knew her well). But it wasn’t till that 5th one that I got the call with tears of joy, knowing she was now in the right major (and now works in said industry). My biggest fear was for any of mine to spend 4 years in a college (and that we were paying for) and stuck in a major they didn’t really want to be in. Two double majored and one did major and minor. Not everyone goes to college knowing what they want to be. I wanted them to be able to explore and if they found a passion, be able to go for it.
- The Trojan family network thing - it is real. Connections matter when they get out. I just wasn’t that familiar with grads from some of the other schools actually helping each other out. They didn’t have that family helping family feel that went beyond the four years. Every one of mine uses and has very close Trojan connections that have been amazing from watching a game together with alum they just met when across the country or getting a job and everything in between.
- California is crowded and fighting for resources is a daily struggle, didn’t want my kids having to do that in college (getting classes, lunch, opportunities with profs, etc).
- We found the cost wasn’t as big a difference when factoring in being assured you can graduate in 4 years (versus paying for more for another year at UC) and bonus of getting 2 majors or major/minor, which can be done (when well planned for) at USC.
- And last one, sounds dumb (and helicopter parent kind of thing) but it was big for us at the time, including my student. Room mate selection was random at UCLA meaning my studious engineer could be placed with two, let’s call it “more party type” major students (no judgement just different). And having to leave room to study seemed a pain. USC had great room mate matching (worked fantastic) and limit 2 to a room in most dorm situations.
But gosh oh golly, all those are great educations and experiences, we just wanted the bit more flexibility that we felt we could get at USC, and believed it was worth paying for. It was. And I do still enjoy getting the fight on sign when traveling somewhere in the world or driving on some interstate when we have something USC visible on us or the car. Little bonus. 
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#3 is very true. Connections do matter. It is unfortunate that this truth is so upsetting to people.
I guess this demonstrates that USC do their yield protection pretty efficiently. They don’t admit the students from our (fairly middle class for the Bay Area, >50% URM, <50% attending four year college) public high school where history would show that they get turned down for UCLA and UCB.
But USC clearly admit from other schools where parents and students are more likely to prefer USC over the UCs. I’m interested what the demographics of those other schools are, the private HS that our neighbor’s kid attended had multiple kids who didn’t even apply to UCs because they believed private colleges were better.
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This sounds EXACTLY like the high school both S19 and D22 attended. They both got accepted to USC, UCLA, and Berkeley (as do others in their high school every year).
It doesn’t demonstrate anything. You are looking at your single high school and making assumptions on how admissions evaluates 80K applications from all over the world.
I don’t believe one iota that USC looked at my student’s application and assumed that they would prefer USC over a UC. In my child’s case, their parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all attended California public schools. If anything, I believe that USC offered the package that they did because they knew they were competing against a CA public.
We are fortunate to live in California and financially, we saved for our children to attend a CA public. We told them that any school they were admitted to would need to come in close to the price of a UC, or below it. My children applied to multiple UCs, multiple CSUs and 3-5 privates. They also applied for many outside scholarships. My USC student received several scholarships and had many admission decisions (both public and private) that fit our financial criteria. They definitely had choices and, despite having multiple family members who are Bruins, they chose USC.
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But do you believe that USC cares about yield and exercises yield protection? That means looking at the track record of yield from a given HS when deciding whether to make offers to applicants from that HS. I’m sure there are plenty of other HSs around here where USC’s historic yield is better and presumably they would prefer to extend offers. I suspect the decisions on whether to make offers to students at our HS focus primarily on legacies and applicants for specialist programs.
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May be not you specifically.
Growing up in So Cal, I know people who treats USC like religion. I think people who are fanatical about USC will have that permeating out of their applications.
IMO: there are students “any school” will want to buy; there are students they have to admit; there are students they need, then crumbs left for everyone else. I think USC is doing great at this game.
I’m only complaining about the $95k because I know we’re just too average, and mad that I fell for this game when I should have known better.
UC on the other hand, we all know we’re just a number in the system.
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