USC should further expand its new financial aid development

President Carol Folt announced in a mid-February letter that, beginning with the undergraduate Class of 2024, USC students coming from families whose annual income is under $80,000 will receive free tuition. This development is in line with Folt’s goal to increase the University’s affordability and accessibility. According to her letter, the new policy will do just that for more than 4,000 students a year going forward.

However, the rest of the undergraduate population may feel like they just missed out. Returning students who come from families with similar financial statuses became USC students a few years — or even just a year — too early to receive free tuition. Especially for underclassmen, who still have several years of their undergraduate education left to complete, this new policy could have been very valuable.

While the new policy shows that USC is moving toward accommodating financially underprivileged students, it does not demonstrate that it is willing to use all of its power and funds to achieve equity. If Folt estimates that 4,000 students each year will be eligible for free tuition, then that means there are roughly 12,000 current USC students who would have been eligible for free tuition. This demonstrates a clear need for more financial support in USC’s current student population that the University is not addressing.

Although the University cannot go back in time to eliminate tuition that was already paid, it could alleviate additional financial strain on its current students under the $80,000 margin by granting them free tuition from here on out. It would be especially valuable for current students because they — unlike incoming students — have already been paying USC’s expensive tuition. As a result, many have shouldered a tremendous financial burden and will face copious amounts of student loan debt post-graduation. 

Despite the fact that many transfer students at USC are first-time four-year university students, the new policy does not extend to them either. Unlike students who begin their undergraduate education at USC, transfer students already face disadvantages like the absence of a Freshman Forgiveness policy and guaranteed on-campus housing. 

On top of this, the University does not provide them with the same financial aid benefits as freshmen, as many scholarships are only accessible to first year students. In order to ensure all students have a smooth transition into USC, the University should consider extending the new financial aid policy to transfer students. In addition, free tuition is certainly enticing to incoming freshmen, but it would similarly encourage more transfer students to attend USC.

A substantial expansion of the new financial aid policy is especially necessary now during a time when the coronavirus pandemic has caused families to undergo additional economic hardship. Many parents may have lost jobs, which significantly decreases families’ abilities to afford the University’s staggering and ever-increasing cost of attendance. The pandemic has affected, and will continue to affect, the financial statuses of not only USC’s incoming class of freshmen but its current students as well, and the University should work to meet the continued financial needs of its students.

If the University truly wants to “educate students, independent of their background or ability to pay,” it is falling short of this goal by not including all students in its new financial aid plan. It seems unfair that two students in the same financial situation may have completely different aid offers; one may be given free tuition, and the other may pay thousands of dollars simply because they entered USC a year earlier.