At $2,353 per “Regular Session” unit, USC summer tuition rates have climbed higher than ever before following the increase of 2025-2026 university attendance costs.
USC summer tuition costs vary between different majors, as students enrolled in the Law Session may pay up to $3,101 per unit and more than $2,500 for graduate courses.
“I do think the cost of tuition is a little steep for summer classes,” Benjamin Song, a sophomore studying human biology, said. “But I understand that not as many students sign up.”
Students taking summer courses like Song have to consider other mandatory fees like the health fee, housing and food. On top of financial concerns, work opportunities and unpaid internships provide an extra layer of obstacles.
California law mandates that in order to have an unpaid internship, a student must be enrolled in summer school. In other words, a student must receive class credit in exchange for their work as an intern.
At USC, some students must enroll in the internship course for their major, which are usually two credits, meaning students working an unpaid internship must pay up to at least $5,000 in tuition to participate.
When asked about the cost of summer tuition and financial aid available to students, the university directed Annenberg Media to the Financial Aid Office website.
“Annual financial aid data includes information for the entire school year; summer data isn’t broken out separately,” the university said in the statement.
More than two-thirds of USC students receive financial aid during the school year, but financial aid is much harder to access in summer sessions.
According to the USC Financial Aid Office webiste there is limited funding available through their office and other academic departments. Additionally, summer loans from USC are only available if the student is enrolled part-time, a minimum of six units.
Their website explicitly states that a student’s loan could be canceled if they are only enrolled in two units during the summer session, which is the requirement number of units for a non-paid internship.
Work-study funds are available to continuing students who can earn up to $3,500. These funds are still available to students who aren’t enrolled in summer classes. So any USC student with a work-study job can still be employed while enrolled in a class.
There is also a potential that if you ask for summer aid, as a result, your eligibility for other financial aid programs may be reduced, according to the Financial Aid Office Website.
Cal Grant recipients can use funds from their school-year packages. No additional aid will be available through Cal Grant and a portion of their money for the upcoming school year would be chewed away during the summer session if students sign up for such courses.
This means that if a student just needs to enroll in a two-unit course for the summer to meet the requirements for their unpaid internship, they must pay anywhere from $5,000-9,000 without financial assistance.
Once enrolled at USC, students cannot take community college or equivalent classes to fulfill GE Core Literacy Requirements or the lower-division writing requirement. Only GE-G, GE-H and foreign language credits can be taken elsewhere. Students can also earn elective credits, but have limited options for classes that their credits will actually transfer.
Summer courses available at USC, however, are also limited.
“I was looking into trying to do my GE requirement in community college, and it was one of those where you can’t transfer the credit, so I didn’t really have a choice,” Song said.
This year’s summer session runs from May 21 to August 12.