Estimated total cost now >99K. Only still under 100K because they lowered the estimated cost of books by about 1,000 from last year (1300/year vs 2400/year).
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Hard to justify as a California resident. If you have the resume to get into USC you can get into a UC for $200k less for your degree.
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Starting in Fall 2025, USC is rolling out a digital course materials program where students can access all required textbooks and course materials for a $292 flat fee. Students are given the option to opt of if they do not want to participate. I’m guessing that this program enabled the school to lower its cost of books estimate.
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Looks like they took a lot of trouble to keep it below $100k, crossing which would lead to a lot of bad publicity.
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Wow. I thought NYU was expensive and that’s like $10k more for tuition.
Are they generous with financial aid? Often colleges look more expensive than they are. Neither kid interested in USC so have never looked into it.
USC claims to meet full need, but its definition of “need” historically has been less generous than that of many other schools making that claim, so that its net price in its net price calculator tended to be higher than those other schools (and in-state UCs). Unlike UCs, USC requires the CSS Profile with Noncustodial Profile, so financial aid can be more problematic for students with divorced parents.
For a California family of 3 and 1 in college, net price calculators show:
| Parent income | USC net price | UCLA net price |
|---|---|---|
| $26k | $21k | $9k |
| $50k | $25k | $11k |
| $97k | $40k | $19k |
| $169k | $65k | $41k |
| $235k | $88k | $41k |
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Strangely the estimated bill we received for EA admit daughters last month were both slightly above 100k, not below. I wonder if they made some last minute changes before RD decisions go out.