Students create petition demanding lower tuition


On Monday night, an open letter and petition addressed to USC President C. L. Max Nikias and Provost Michael Quick were created anonymously on Change.org and have circulated among students on social media.

The petition, which has received more than 400 signatures as of Tuesday evening, is calling for “an affordable education, transparency regarding where our tuition dollars are going, and student voting power in the Board of Trustees to keep our administration accountable.”

The petition directly cites efforts from the Undergraduate Student Government and Graduate Student Government to lower tuition. Vice President for Student Affairs Ainsley Carry wrote a letter on March 10 to members of Undergraduate Student Government and Graduate Student Government regarding the tuition increase for the 2016-2017 academic year. The letter responds directly to requests in the governmental bodies’ resolutions regarding affordability and transparency.

“I’d like to thank the GSG and USG for reaching out to my team and me before, during and after the drafting of the resolutions about college affordability and financial transparency at USC. It is a complex topic, and I appreciate their diligence in investing their time to establish a solid base to inform that discussion,” Carry said in the letter.

In the letter, Carry points out that 17 years worth of university financial reports are available online but concedes that USC can do a better job of distilling some of the most important data points to help our students understand how their tuition dollars are being spent.

To that end, Carry said the University will use its About USC site to provide an easier-to-understand breakdown of the University’s finances to “more clearly describe how the University is working to maintain affordability, even as tuition costs are going up.”

In response to a request in the student government resolutions for 30 days advance notice of tuition increases, Carry said that the tuition rates for the following academic year are posted online in early March, providing an effective notice of five months.

According to Carry, the University will reinstate the Student Fee Advisory Committee, whose student members will be able to review proposed fee increases. This was directly requested in USG’s College Affordability Resolution and by GSG in a separate resolution.

“In direct response to the resolutions presented by the USG and GSG, I will commit the Division of Student Affairs to work with them on a memorandum of understanding to reinstate the Student Fee Advisory Committee,” Carry said. This MOU will articulate the purpose and roles for the committee and its members, including the review of proposed fee increases and the communication of any year-over-year increases in tuition and fees.”

A formal outline of the “purpose[s] and roles” for the new committee is in progress with input from USG, GSG and USC Student Affairs. USG had requested in November that a reinstated committee have the “express authority” to approve, reject or negotiate changes to student fees, but it’s not clear if that will be the case.

The main student request left unaddressed is a tuition freeze. Carry said that USC does not intend to formally freeze tuition.

“Year-over-year tuition increases at USC are at or near their lowest in 50 years,” Carry wrote. “As a non-profit institution that has to balance its budget every year, we must either raise tuition or cut services as our costs continue to increase.”

Carry also said that the demands for a tuition freeze directly conflict with students’ desires for on-campus programs.

“The student demand for additional services also increases every year,” Carry said. “We can’t fulfill both the request for services and for a tuition freeze. Those requests are at direct odds with each other.”

Carry wrote that the University will continue to work with student governments to consider the University’s finances and “the value of a USC education.”