the majority of her tuition will be covered by scholarships and grants. But those expensive lofts in the "with it" section of downtown and the bodyguard will probably have to be out of pocket.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:USC is a great school, but it kind of has that "rich kid" GW vibe, while UCLA has the better academic reputation. On the other hand, the WASPy culture of USC may be on the way out, as the student body is becoming more diverse today. The percentage of Asian students has been steadily going up, and the school has put a lot of effort into recruiting students from China, South Korea, etc.

that's because they pay full tuition which helps to support USC's expensive football team.

It is obvious you know very little about big college football. Universities with successful football teams pay for a lot of the other academic and small athletic programs at the university. On top of the revenue generated by tv and bowl appearances, alum boosters pour millions of dollars into the program. In turn, the football team return money to the university to provide academic merit scholarships.

Anonymous wrote:because of the 1992 riots the businesses around the campus did not rebuild. There is no "U" district with cafes, restaurants, bookstores, bars, shops etc. You need a car to drive to the nicer parts of LA cited by LA poster. If you don't have a car you are going to be stuck on campus.

There is no "U" district like Westwood Village next to UCLA. But USC is roughly two miles south of downtown LA, which is one of LA's most "with it" neighborhoods. There are new restaurants, bars, and trendy clothing stores, and many USC students live in those very expensive loft apartments downtown. Downtown is just three light rail stops away, and an even quicker drive. USC is adjacent to Exposition Park, famous for its rose gardens, museums and the LA Memorial Coliseum. But the neighborhoods adjacent to USC and the park are very poor, run down, and generally not safe. USC is surrounded by some of LA's poorest neighborhoods.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the last post for real? Makes South Central LA sound like a favela, which maybe it is.

Irony is that the girl probably could go to George Mason with dozens of her Marshall classmates and get as good an education as at USC.

Are these descriptions exaggerations? If indeed south central Los Angeles is this dangerous, shouldn't the National Guard be sent in to patrol the streets? What is an equivalent neighborhood in termis of crime in this area?

Crime has been targeted at the students and the National Guard has been called out before - for the Watts riots and the Rodney King riots. The place is a powder keg.

I like to think that I am well-infdrmed, I read the NYT and Wapo daily, listen to NPR, scan Google news -- how is it that I have missed this story about a major city, here in the United States, which is a powder keg, ready to explode, very dangerous, extremely violent, with the National Guard called out recently?

Will someone here who is actually from there please set the record for me.

It is shockingly rough.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:because of the 1992 riots the businesses around the campus did not rebuild. There is no "U" district with cafes, restaurants, bookstores, bars, shops etc. You need a car to drive to the nicer parts of LA cited by LA poster. If you don't have a car you are going to be stuck on campus.

So USC is near a bad part of LA. Marshall HS is across from Pimmit Hills, the worst part of the Tysons area. The homes in Pimmit Hills look like South Central LA, except they aren't as big. She'll be fine.

oh c'mon. You're having a larf.

Really??? You think Pimmit Hills equates to South Central LA. I think you've been smoking a little bit of something that is now legal in CO.

Anonymous wrote:because of the 1992 riots the businesses around the campus did not rebuild. There is no "U" district with cafes, restaurants, bookstores, bars, shops etc. You need a car to drive to the nicer parts of LA cited by LA poster. If you don't have a car you are going to be stuck on campus.

So USC is near a bad part of LA. Marshall HS is across from Pimmit Hills, the worst part of the Tysons area. The homes in Pimmit Hills look like South Central LA, except they aren't as big. She'll be fine.

because of the 1992 riots the businesses around the campus did not rebuild. There is no "U" district with cafes, restaurants, bookstores, bars, shops etc. You need a car to drive to the nicer parts of LA cited by LA poster. If you don't have a car you are going to be stuck on campus.

Well, it is a bit beyond people having "poor credit." There have been and are structural injustices. Many blacks were consigned to living in certain areas by racially discriminatory property covenants. Watts became a predominately AA working class and middle class area during and AA WWII. However, later, as industrial jobs dried up or were taken over by recent immigrants, many blacks had trouble finding good paying jobs. U.S. Government under-writing rules for home mortages instituted red-lining among banks, which chose not to extend credit to black areas, and the "block-busting" practices of real estate agents combined with freeway construction, encouraged "white flight" to the suburbs. Gangs had their origins in the black clubs that established in the Watts, Crenshaw and other black areas to fight against white violence on blacks.

Anonymous wrote:Of course, Koreans are not well known for their tolerance of blacks and Hispanics. When I lived in Korea, many Koreans would differentiate between Americans and blacks and it is shameful their attitude towards kyopo - mixed race children. I actually had a Korean-American colleague tell a a korean businessman thinking of moving to the U.S. that Fairfax County was a good place to raise a family because "there are very few black people there."

A lot of the tension between the two groups also stems from the fact that Korean immigrants come to the US, get business loans and open up businesses in poor, urban areas where the majority of residents are AAs. AAs resent that they often cannot get business loans maybe because of poor credit and newcomers are given loans and become successful business owners. At the same time, the store owners despise customers because of theft and they may be impolite or aggressive. The generational poverty is frustrating and it is difficult to see others come in to your neighborhood and be successful.

LA county is a huge and spread out. Neighborhoods next to each other can be very different. You can have an area that is poverty-stricken and crime-ridden like South Central LA. And not more than ten minutes away you have some of the wealthiest places in the world like Bel Air and parts of Beverly Hills. Think the LA poster said the downtown area is nice. That may be true and the city itself, where people work, is okay during the daytime. But just a couple blocks over from that area, which is still, technically, the city, are dangerous, crime-ridden streets.

Of course, Koreans are not well known for their tolerance of blacks and Hispanics. When I lived in Korea, many Koreans would differentiate between Americans and blacks and it is shameful their attitude towards kyopo - mixed race children. I actually had a Korean-American colleague tell a a korean businessman thinking of moving to the U.S. that Fairfax County was a good place to raise a family because "there are very few black people there."

Well, Koreatown is west of downtown and significantly north of the USC campus.

Is LA more or less safe than other large American cities? A recent Forbes magazine article rates LA at 19th most safest and Washington, DC at 20th. NYC is ranked 8th safest. These statistics are for metro area, not only city proper.

Miami is ranked least safest big city-good to see my hometown holding its own. It was the murder capital of America when I was in high school. Of course, if you weren't one of the Cocaine Cowboys, your chances of ending up in the Dade County Medical Examiners Office were quite slim.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the last post for real? Makes South Central LA sound like a favela, which maybe it is.

Irony is that the girl probably could go to George Mason with dozens of her Marshall classmates and get as good an education as at USC.

Are these descriptions exaggerations? If indeed south central Los Angeles is this dangerous, shouldn't the National Guard be sent in to patrol the streets? What is an equivalent neighborhood in terms of crime in this area?

Crime has been targeted at the students and the National Guard has been called out before - for the Watts riots and the Rodney King riots. The place is a powder keg.

The Watts Rebellion was in 1965. USC leadership,made a conscious decision to remain in South Central LA after this. In 1992, the USC campus remained untouched as businesses were burned and looted nearby. This is largely credited with the relationship the University and its students have with the community outside. More than 50 percent of USC students volunteer for community service programs in the neighborhoods surrounding USC.

The 1992 riots that occurred in response to the verdict in the Rodney asking trial were much more wide ranging, with violence and mayhem extending beyond South Central LA. Koreatown, located in West LA, was hardest hit.

All this history bring said, LA is no more or less dangerous than any other very large Americsn city.

During the 1992 riots, businesses directly across the street from the campus were burned to the ground. The rioters marched up one of the streets surrounding the school to Koreatown (BTW, Koreatown is not in West LA (West LA is Westwood, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, etc). Koreatown was hard hit was because months before the Rodney King verdict, an AA teen was shot and killed by a Korean store owner. The store owner got off lightly and there had been a lot of tension between the AA and immigrant Korean business owners. The campus was also spared because some say the school asked the media reporting live not to focus any attention on the school because the rioters would usually go over and do more destruction to locations that were on tv. The military shut down on and off ramps to the freeway right up the street from the school because they wanted to stop rioters from hurting and killing motorists on the freeway and didn't want them to block that major escape route.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the last post for real? Makes South Central LA sound like a favela, which maybe it is.

Irony is that the girl probably could go to George Mason with dozens of her Marshall classmates and get as good an education as at USC.

Are these descriptions exaggerations? If indeed south central Los Angeles is this dangerous, shouldn't the National Guard be sent in to patrol the streets? What is an equivalent neighborhood in terms of crime in this area?

Crime has been targeted at the students and the National Guard has been called out before - for the Watts riots and the Rodney King riots. The place is a powder keg.

The Watts Rebellion was in 1965. USC leadership,made a conscious decision to remain in South Central LA after this. In 1992, the USC campus remained untouched as businesses were burned and looted nearby. This is largely credited with the relationship the University and its students have with the community outside. More than 50 percent of USC students volunteer for community service programs in the neighborhoods surrounding USC.

The 1992 riots that occurred in response to the verdict in the Rodney asking trial were much more wide ranging, with violence and mayhem extending beyond South Central LA. Koreatown, located in West LA, was hardest hit.

All this history bring said, LA is no more or less dangerous than any other very large Americsn city.