So, I was recently accepted into USC, which is my number 1 school; however, the financial package i received really didn’t live up to expectations. On my FAFSA, my EFC is 0, which I know USC does not use to calculate their need based aid, but they are expecting me to pay $8k in estimated remaining costs plus $5.5k in loans. I just don’t see how this is possible since there is no way my family can afford that. Do i call the financial aid office? Also, my other options are Tulane and Emory. I have the Paul Tulane Scholarship for Tulane, so basically I would be going there for free. Emory also gave me a very good package with no loans. However, I’d much rather go to USC. Any advice is much appreciated.
http://financialaid.usc.edu/undergraduates/continuing/special-circumstances.html
Emory is a very good school. Unless you want to surf or the performance of your college’s sports teams really matters to you, I might even rank it above USC.
By “expectations” do you mean to say that the actual financial aid offer is significantly worse than what USC’s net price calculator told you before you applied?
exactly
USC uses the CSS profile, which looks as your overall income and assets. In addition, most of the CSS profile schools ask for a student contribution from summer earnings. No one has scammed, you, they expect you to be a stakeholder in paying for your education
Go to Tulane.
You do not have to go to you number 1 choice if you can not afford it. Can your parent cosign loan for you ?
I’m not trying to be harsh, but I would encourage you to be thankful that you have Tulane and Emory as financially viable options. Calling USC’s financial aid offer a scam is offensive and makes you sound very entitled.
Love the school that loves you.
You have two affordable options. Choose one of those…and be grateful you have these two fine choices.
Please double check your aid at Tulane. The PT is full tuition, not a full ride. You will still need to pay for room and board unless you have other grant aid that covers those.
@GnocchiB: If USC’s fin aid differs enough from what their NPC said they would provide to make them unaffordable (where their NPC indicated that they were affordable), I can understand thinking that I’d been scammed.
In any case, Emory and Tulane are excellent options and on roughly the same tier as USC anyway.
echoing Dio’s comment above.Be very careful about the aid at Tulane. If there is a need-based grant on top of the Tulane scholarship, remember that Tulane is NOT a 100%-meet-needs school and the % students getting ‘full-need’ package AND the avg % of need met goes down after the freshman year.
Plus there is a min 3.0 GPA component to the PT scholarship. USC, if need-based is likely 2.0 min.
The package at USC not only doesn’t sound like a scam, it sounds quite generous - even though you still can’t afford it. (edited to add this FYI - there are plenty of schools that really do scam you and ‘gap’ you to the tune of 20-30k. USC didn’t do that).,
All that being said … I hope the Tulane award is everything you think it is, just encouraging you to make sure! Same thing with Emory if that is your choice.
You are blessed to have good options, so try not to focus on the one that doesn’t work … put it in your rear-view mirror.
There are many reasons that the financial aid to be different from the NPC. I would not call it a scam. If it is a general practice of that school, the yield rate would be much lower as most students would find it out to be unaffordable.
We know nearly nothing about your financial situation except you feel USC is unaffordable.
How much of your aid covers direct costs at USC? Tuition, fees, room, board?
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1138
according to this, 98.5% of students had 100% of their need met at USC.
That statistic in post 15 isn’t particularly helpful for prospective students. The need met could be just $5000 or $25,000 or $50,000. No way to know.
It’s a lot easier for a school to meet full need when all they neeed to provide is $5000 than $50,000.
But really…I thought USC met full need using their formula for all. They don’t?
@ClarinetDad16 i live in a household of 4, and my parents make ~20k a year
@mommdc my gift aid is $56,123
I am a Louisiana resident, so including TOPS and living at home rather than a dorm, Tulane would be essentially free