Okay, good news! I called another financial person at the school and it turns out Mirpanda is right. Based on the past year, the tuition for TWO semesters is $27,200 (+$576 mandatory fees for TWO semesters). So each semester you pay $13,600 + $288 if taking 10 units ($1360 per unit). I called the film department again and they also said that we will never take any more than 10 units per semester (as seen here
http://cinema.usc.edu/producti...terequirements.cfm), which means that the above is the max price (barring an increase in tuition, which will be announced in the upcoming weeks and is estimated to be between a 2%-5% increase). It's funny because the financial aid / graduate admissions woman I spoke to first told me the amount above was for ONE semester, but when I really began to question her, she looked in to it and said that it was confusing even her.
So this is the max we will pay for the first year, which is 8 units for the first semester and 10 for the second (assuming a 5% increase in both the tuition and mandatory fees, though I don't know if it applies to the latter).
($1360 x 8) + ($1360 x 10) + $576 = ($25,056 x 1.05) = $26,309 at most
For fun (assuming 18 units per year with a 5% increase each year)...
1st year: ($25,056 x 1.05) = $26,309
2nd year: ($26,309 x 1.05) = $27,624
3rd year: ($27,624 x 1.05) = $29,006
Total: $82,939
So probably around $80,000 or $85,000 for three years.
