tl;dr: The University of Southern California cannot continue to sideline students with tuition hikes. We want 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.

In Fall 2015, Undergraduate Student Government passed a resolution calling for a tuition freeze and greater financial transparency from our university. Nearly 2000 students responded to our survey supporting this demand.

The stories that transpired during our campaign for a tuition freeze were heartbreaking. Multiple students described skipping meals to save money. Others mentioned how they felt forced to create “GoFundMes” to pay tuition. Nearly 2,000 out of roughly 17,000 undergraduate students answered the survey; 98% did not know where their tuition dollars went and 96% did not know why their tuition increased every year. USC did not even have the courtesy to tell students about the tuition increase in advance last semester; it simply popped up on our E-Bills, leaving many students scrambling to afford rent, books, and other fees.

Even though USG was in talks with the university regarding a tuition freeze, USC did not bother to inform students of the most recent tuition hike. In fact, they learned through a screenshot featuring the estimated cost of attendance for the 2016-2017 school year found on the Financial Aid website that circulated throughout Facebook on March 1. The collective student shock stemmed from this whopping price tag: $69,711.

We, as a collective force of students from multiple backgrounds, have come together and written the following demands for our university to implement immediately. Please sign on to have your voice heard in this movement. Tuition hikes impact every student on our campus. 

Our demands boil down to three main points - affordability, transparency, and accountability:

1. Affordability
a. We want a promise that tuition will not rise for the next 5 years until questions of Affordability, Transparency, and Accountability can be answered.
b. We want a fixed tuition rate — i.e. students who enter their freshman year at USC are guaranteed to pay the same tuition rate throughout their four years here. Other private institutions, such as George Washington University, have this same plan: https://freshmen.admissions.gwu.edu/gws-fixed-tuition

2. Transparency

We want to know where our money is going with a clear tuition breakdown that can be understood by both students and parents. The Annual Financial Report is insufficient - a document that a graduate Accounting student cannot comprehend (yes, we gave it to one to try to help us and even he could not understand it) is not digestible by undergraduates, let alone high school students looking at universities for the first time. This can be in the form of an online website, presented through infographics and other videos.

3. Accountability

Student Involvement: We want students to be involved in important decision-making that affects us. We hope to achieve this through the appointment of a student trustee who has voting power. We need Student-Administrative oversight to keep our university accountable to us.

FAQ:

1. Isn’t tuition just rising to match inflation?
Our tuition has been rising at a rate much higher than inflation. The cumulative inflation rate from 2012 to 2015 was 3.9% while USC undergraduate tuition rose 11.6% over the same period.

2. How do top universities’ tuitions compare to USC’s $51,442?

Let’s look at the tuition costs of the 5 highest USNews ranked universities in the USA
Princeton: $45,540 (2016-2017)
Harvard: $45,278 (2015-2016)
Yale: $47,600 (2015-2016)
Columbia: $53,000 (2016-2017) (“Hey Columbia costs more than USC!” So it seems, but let’s compare overall cost of attendance: Columbia: $65,860 USC: $69,771. Yep, still got them beat.)
Stanford: $47,331 (2016-2017)

4. Again, our tuition is now $51,442 - is a degree from USC really worth more than one from Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia or Stanford? USNews doesn’t think so, and neither do we.

5. USC gives hella financial aid, so what’s the problem?
Let’s look at some top private universities again:
Stanford: Families with incomes under $125,000 pay no tuition
Princeton: Incomes under $120,000 pay no tuition
Dartmouth: Incomes under $100,000 pay no tuition
Brown, Cornell, Columbia, Duke, Harvard, Yale and MIT: Incomes under or between $60,000-$75000 pay no tuition

USC has no minimum income for free tuition.

6. Isn’t the cost of attendance just going up so that they can meet our demands as students?
This question is exactly why we need to demand transparency from our administration! We have no guarantee that the University is spending all that extra money raised from tuition on giving us the best education instead of using it to stuff their own pockets.

Judging from the salaries of our top administrators, the latter seems much more likely. In 2013, for example, the 19 highest paid administrators at USC made nearly $26 million, more than the salaries of 800 of our non-tenure track faculty (i.e. our educators) combined. President Nikias alone made $1,942,935 in 2013 and continues to be one of the highest paid university presidents in the country, despite not holding office hours for students or being in any way accessible to students, as other university presidents are.

7. Why not go the diplomatic route? (AKA what up with the rally?)
Actually, we have tried the diplomatic route with regards to tuition costs, and many other issues. Consistently, our efforts have been ignored by administration. In November, our Undergraduate Student Government passed a Resolution regarding College Affordability and Financial Transparency at USC, including a survey of the general student body about these issues, which demonstrated widespread frustration.

Moreover, we have evidence from other campuses, as well as our own, that direct action works. Check out how student protesters helped initiate the tuition freeze in the UC system: http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-uc-walkouts-20141125-story.html Tuition for the UC system is frozen until at least the 2017-2018 school year.

8. But we get the perks of the Trojan Family after graduating! Isn’t that worth it?

Lowering tuition cost in no way lowers the value of our Trojan Family and the connections it brings. If, as is argued, our Trojan Family network’s worth cannot be monetized, why do they keep increasing its cost? 70k a year is a lot to pay for “family.” The costs of higher education are spiraling out of control, and it is our responsibility to place a check on the irresponsibility of university administrators and trustees.

More so, we don't need to look far beyond USC to see that the privatization and commodification of education is much bigger than just us and our campus. It's a nation-wide issue. But, given the circumstances, USC students are in the ideal position to do something about it. We believe that's something worth fighting for. Don't you?