USC, Make College More Affordable for Low-Income Students!

  • by: Susan V
  • recipient: University of Southern California President C. L. Max Nikias

The growing gap between rich and poor is restricting social mobility and killing the American Dream. Since one of the major solutions to this problem is making college more affordable, why are America’s wealthiest colleges saddling low-income students with so much debt?

Based on data compiled by the Obama administration, ProPublica found that some our richest colleges are the least helpful to poorer students. In fact says ProPublica, more than a fourth of the 60 richest universities, those with billion-dollar endowments,“leave its poorest students with heavy debt loads,” an average of more than $20,000 in federal loans. 

One of the richest, University of Southern California, with an endowment of $4.6 billion, leaves graduates owing an average of over $23,000. Compare USC to Vassar, with an endowment of less than a fourth of USC’s and yet its graduates are stuck with only a third of what USC’s poorest students have to pay back. ProPublica says Vassar attributes its contribution to social mobility to new policies that replaced loans with grants to poorer students.

Granted, based on Upshot’s College Access Index, smaller colleges like Vassar have a higher per-student endowment than USC does. However, University of Florida’s per-student endowment is less than a third of USC’s and yet its “middle-income net price” is only $9,000 compared to USC’s $21,000. Likewise the per-student endowment at UC, Irvine and Santa Barbara are far less than USC’s and yet their cost to lower income students is not more than $14,000.

The impact of heavy loan debt is far-reaching, notes ProPublica, putting young graduates “at a disadvantage for years,‘ limiting their ability to save or buy a home.

Sign this petition to ask USC to make college more affordable for low-income students.

We, the undersigned, believe America’s wealthiest colleges have an obligation to make higher education more affordable for low-income students.


The irony of lower-income students being burdened by such heavy debt after graduation is that the debt defeats one of the primary purposes of earning the degree in the first place, to move upward, economically, in society.


ProPublica’s explanation of how Vassar made a turnaround in its policies on helping poorer students should serve as an example to USC and other wealthy colleges. In 2006 Vassar hired Catherine Bond Hill as its new president, and during her first years she instituted policies that accepted “students regardless of their financial background,” and replaced “loans with grants to poorer students.” Then she aggressively recruited applicants from poorer neighborhoods. “After 10 years, adds ProPublica, Vassar became “one of the most affordable colleges in the country for low-income students.”


Other colleges with quite a bit less wealth, even those with a far lower per-student endowment than USC, have shown that poorer students don’t have to be buried in debt to get an education that will help them move up in society. As Hill told Propublica “Schools that have the resources should be giving out more in need-based grant aid.”


We agree and ask USC to consider initiating policy changes to make college more affordable for low income students.

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