Yesterday, Northwestern University’s president, Michael Schill, resigned amid months of political attacks, frozen federal research funding and mounting criticism over his handling of Israel-Palestine campus protests in spring 2024. Nearly $790 million in federal research grants were abruptly cut this spring, including more than 1,300 National Institutes of Health grants, forcing Northwestern to announce 425 job eliminations. 

Sound familiar? 

The lesson is clear: Elite universities are no longer insulated from political backlash or financial intimidation. If USC does not align its lofty “unifying” values with tangible action, we may be next.

In recent months, USC has cut deeply into the basic resources students depend on. Merit scholarships like the Presidential and Trustee awards are shrinking; Academic Achievement Awards are being phased out for new students, despite previous backlash with the award’s original cancellation last year; and need-based aid is harder to access. 

Guaranteed housing — formerly promised for two years — is under review, potentially forcing sophomores, juniors and seniors to source housing on the outskirts of campus. Even the free nighttime Lyft program, funded by the mandatory transportation fee, has been curtailed to start at 7 p.m. instead of 6 p.m.

Administrators defend these decisions as part of a broader financial crisis. Interim President Beong-Soo Kim confirmed USC ended fiscal year 2025 with an operating deficit exceeding $200 million, up from $158 million in the previous fiscal year. The shortfall is real, but these cuts ring hollow when the University simultaneously touts raising $640 million in annual aid while also attracting record-breaking donations.

USC loves to market its “unifying values”: integrity, excellence, community, well-being, open communication and accountability. Yet, when tested, these characteristics evaporate, at the expense of students’ livelihoods. 

For students, it is not “integrity” when promised scholarships — scholarships that specifically attract these high-merit students — are reduced. It is not “community” when housing is rationed and simplified into lottery selection. It is not “accountability” when funding cuts fall hardest on those with the least to give. 

Northwestern’s bureaucratic collapse is a case study on the repercussions of when universities try to split the difference — appeasing some constituencies while failing to defend students and their own principles. The University of Virginia offers another cautionary tale: President James E. Ryan resigned in June after the Department of Justice targeted the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs, underscoring how quickly external pressure can force change when leadership falters.  

But collapse is not inevitable. Yesterday, Harvard University won a court battle against the Trump administration after challenging the constitutionality of the federal funding freeze. Though the money has yet to be returned, this move is something that USC should take out of Harvard’s book. 

USC is already on the defensive — in March, it froze faculty hiring, halted projects and slashed discretionary spending in response to the threat of federal funding cuts tied to campus unrest, paralleling the actions of Northwestern. 

“What’s becoming very clear is [that] the most important thing is to keep our eye on the core mission of the University: teaching our students, graduate and undergraduate; treating our patients; and doing the research,” said Provost Andrew Guzman at an Academic Senate hearing in May. 

Students are now asked to shoulder the burden of austerity while watching the University operate like an unscrupulous corporation: expanding aggressively, borrowing heavily and then branding the fallout as “structural.”

The Trump administration’s tendency to weaponize federal funds against universities to force compliance is the obvious trigger in these cases, a reminder that institutions cannot afford to hunker down and wait out the storm.

What USC needs now is not another glossy statement of values but substantive action. This means reinstating the pathways of access that once made the University feel attainable. Programs like AAA and merit scholarships are not luxuries — they’re symbols of excellence and a commitment to equity as well as a reminder that students are not consumers at a for-profit corporation but members of an institution that follows through on its claims of nurturance. 

USC must learn to defend its own community under fire. Neutrality in the face of political pressure is not balance; it is abandonment. When student groups are targeted, when federal scrutiny threatens campus expression or when funding is tied to ideological submission, leadership cannot hide behind vague appeals to dialogue. 

The plight of Northwestern and UVA prove that elite universities are only as strong as their values in practice. USC cannot continue balancing its misplaced idealism against reality or treating its students as expendable. The consequences — more lost funding, axed leadership and vanishing semblances of community trust — will arrive faster than expected.

USC might weather a financial storm. But the University’s reputation, integrity and students will not survive being sacrificed piece by piece. 

If the University refuses to act, someone else will, and by then, it will be too late.