On March 7, just before spring break began and just after the University announced a tuition hike for next year, USC’s Academic Honors and Fellowships office confirmed that the Academic Achievement Award and Exceptional Funding programs would be cut beginning Fall 2024. 

Due to the nature of their eligibility criteria, fewer than 2% of undergraduates were eligible for these scholarships, but they still created a meaningful impact on our campus community. 

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When the story broke, the USC student community felt immediate outrage, especially since students were not even informed directly by the University. Additionally, the decision came just before Fall 2024 registration, a time during which many students meet with their advisors to discuss course plans — plans that may now be derailed.

These scholarships were critical for many students — across backgrounds and USC experiences — to graduate on time and to afford their educational goals.

Merit scholars deserve better

In 2023, 484 first-year admits were given either the Presidential or Trustee Merit Scholarships, amounting to a little over 13% of all first-year admits. I happened to be one of these students.

For myself and many other merit scholars, choosing USC without any kind of financial aid or scholarship was out of the question. We all know the full cost of attendance is expensive; $90,000 a year isn’t easy to pay for the typical American family whose median annual income is $74,580. 

For my undergraduate education, I wanted to avoid getting into an uncomfortable financial situation. Yet, despite receiving larger scholarships from other universities, I still chose to go to USC, because I believed it had the best location, education and values for me for its price. If not for my merit scholarship offer, I would not be here. 

Removing Exceptional Funding for future merit scholars will discourage them from attending USC as the institution gets more and more expensive to attend. In fact, I applied for Exceptional Funding this summer, and without it, I would not be able to graduate in eight semesters with my major and minors. 

Merit scholars are students USC wants to attract, as they are students dedicated to their education and strengthening our academic community. Although current merit scholars like myself still have access to Exceptional Funding until we graduate, USC needs to think about the years ahead and how this decision will negatively impact our community as a whole. 

If USC wants to be known as a university that values academic excellence and moves away from its reputation as a school overly focused on financials, then it needs to reinstate Exceptional Funding for future students.

— Danica Minh González Nguyễn

Transfer troubles with AAA

Transfer students make up a small but significant portion of the student body here at USC. From the 2023 application year alone, 9,448 total applications were reviewed, and 2,310 were admitted for the fall semester. I was lucky enough to be one of those 2,310 students. 

I was excited to go to USC; I knew that attending USC meant accessing new opportunities that couldn’t be found anywhere else. You can imagine just how disappointed and disheartened I was when one of those opportunities, the AAA, was taken away before I even got to utilize it.

I am an English major on the pre-med track; balancing these two academic disciplines requires a lot of time management, meetings with counselors and many, many Celsius drinks. I wanted to use the AAA to ensure that I was on track for both of these subjects because I want to pursue a master’s degree at USC via the Progressive Degree Program. 

Now I am under even more stress, because pre-med students must excel academically while participating in research, volunteering in both hospital and non-hospital settings, and shadowing doctors to understand what that career might be like. The termination of the AAA takes away my time from these activities, which in turn weakens my application for an already competitive and oversaturated field. 

To make matters worse, I feel as if I am on borrowed time here. I am lucky enough to have parents who have found a way to fund my education. However, my parents are getting older; I can’t afford to delay my graduation time because frankly, I need to be able to start working to provide for them as soon as possible. To me, the discontinuation of the AAA along with the tuition increase speaks of USC’s greediness. 

I am incredibly disgusted and disappointed by the news that this scholarship will no longer be available. USC has to do better and ought to remember that it is a school first and a business second.

— Sherie Agcaoili

Students who need to graduate early 

The removal of the AAA also impacted students who were relying on it to graduate early to save on tuition. However, with the removal of the scholarship, high-achieving academic students, who were willing to take on the extra workload, will have to pay to do so — defeating the purpose of overloading their classes. 

“My goal was to graduate one semester early with a minor. In order to do this, I would have to take around 20 credits every semester, next semester onward,” said Shivi Anand, a sophomore majoring in global geodesign. “[Removal of AAA] has made it less convenient to do the minor … Now that it doesn’t exist, I will have to pay out of pocket.”

It isn’t fair that current students who planned their years at USC based on this scholarship are now asked to re-evaluate their courses. I only added my minor knowing that, with the AAA, I could finish the requirements without needing to pay extra. Had I known that the AAA would be discontinued, I would have, perhaps, chosen differently. It’s unfair of USC to suddenly drop the program without any prior notice. 

In an ideal world, the AAA would be awarded permanently. But, perhaps, USC wants to allocate these funds elsewhere. Yet, instead of discontinuing it for all students graduating after Summer 2025, perhaps, extend the scholarship to all current USC students, since most students here have charted their course plan by accounting for the scholarship. 

— Edhita Singhal

Double majors now have to rethink their academic careers

The removal of the AAA has also impacted students pursuing two majors. Many of them relied on the funding to take 20 units a semester to remain on track for their anticipated graduation. These students are now pushed into a position where they may have to drop a major to graduate on time. 

Students who enjoy learning and are willing to put in the hard work and effort that comes with being immersed in two academic disciplines are forced against a wall. They either have to pay additional costs to continue taking 20 units, have to drop a major that they are already working towards or change their graduation timeline. 

Grace Gordon, a sophomore majoring in cinema and media studies as well as visual anthropology, said she would likely have to drop her visual anthropology major without AAA and with tuition increases.

“I just don’t think that’s fair … It’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Gordon said. “[The decision is] barring [students] from flourishing academically and achieving their career goals.”

The discontinuation of the AAA and Exceptional Funding scholarships prevents students from exploring different academic pathways and having a diverse and enriching college experience. USC is a school that prides itself on allowing students to partake in disciplines, something that will no longer be possible with this discontinuation.

— Amrita Vora

Now, current and future Trojans will no longer have access to these scholarships, scholarships that could very well have changed their lives for the better.

The move away from AAA and Exceptional Funding is incredibly disappointing because USC encourages its students to be faithful, scholarly, skillful, courageous and ambitious — it’s even written on the Tommy Trojan statue. USC also promotes “interdisciplinary freedom” for its students yet is punishing its students who have multiple majors and minors. 

By discontinuing these two scholarships, USC sent the message that it does not care about the success of its most hard-working scholars, nor will it pretend to anymore. USC students, however, are fighting back. A Change.org petition was launched by an anonymous student claiming that AAA was essential for their education.

”This decision [to do away with AAA] disproportionately affects students of colors and those from low-income backgrounds — it’s classist and elitist,” the organizer wrote. “It was a lifeline that enabled us to pursue our academic goals without the burden of crippling debt.”

At 2,879 signatures, it is clear that this student is not alone in the fight to reinstate the AAA scholarship. USG president and vice president-elect Bryan Fernandez and Brianna Sanchez are also doing their part in the fight to keep these scholarships alive.

“We will definitely keep the opinion of students at the forefront of our advocacy work,” the duo said at this week’s USG meeting, in which senators unanimously passed a resolution calling for the reinstatement of AAA and Exceptional Funding.

USC’s response has, of course, been disappointing. Despite seeming to recognize AAA’s importance by extending the eligibility to students graduating in August 2025 due to student complaints, USC has made no other attempt to allay student concerns.

“The Academic Achievement Award was never a guarantee,” said Andrew McConnell Stott, vice provost for Academic Programs and dean of the Graduate School. “[The AAA] has reached its natural conclusion.”

For something that has “reached its natural conclusion,” the dissolution of both scholarships has elicited unnaturally high levels of upset. And despite Stott’s assertion that it was never a guarantee, students who staked their decision to attend USC on those programs certainly disagree.

Luisa Luo contributed to this report.