College is proving too expensive for 17-year-old Miranda Cosgrove.
Not that the star of the pistol-hot kids series “iCarly” can’t afford either NYU or the University of Southern California — both of which have accepted her for the coming fall.
At $180,000 per episode, her reported salary is more than enough to cover the tuition.
Yesterday, Miranda’s publicist confirmed that the teen star was putting off starting college until next spring or the following fall.
“She really wants to go to college,” the press rep said, but she is delaying her freshman year to stay in LA and film a fifth — and perhaps final — season of “iCarly” sometime in 2012.
Last week, Cosgrove revealed that she’d been accepted at her two top choices but had not yet made up her mind where she wanted to go.
Her father is a USC graduate and has been urging her to go there. But last year, Miranda, who turns 18 next month, told The Post she wanted “to get out of California” when it came time to start college.
She plans to major in film.
“I’m chickening out at the last minute,” she said last week. “I love New York, but I’m scared to move and leave LA.”
It is impossible to overstate the popularity of “iCarly” right now.
The latest episode of the Nickelodeon series drew more than 7 million viewers — by far, the biggest show on cable last week and more highly rated than all but a handful of shows on the major networks.
Cosgrove is due back in New York next Thursday when she accepts an award — along with Bill Clinton – as ”Best Role Model in a Digital Age” from a family digital organization called Common Sense Media.
In her series, Carly plays the star of her own, weekly web show.