USC Must Reduce The Student Population

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
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<p>First and foremost, I love USC and I have never felt that the student body size has ever negatively affected my education. However, I strongly believe that the administration MUST reduce the student population. Having a comparable research budget, faculty salaries, and per student endowment as other elite universities will greatly assist USC in its academic priorities and further propel itself into elite status.</p>

<p>I would recommend reducing the larger colleges/schools (Dornsife, Marshall/Leventhal, and Annenberg) significantly, preferably by a fourth. Dornsife has 6,698 undergraduate students. That is as large as many peer universities entire undergraduate population. </p>

<p>Columbia, Harvard, Penn, and Northwestern's student body population (undergraduate and post graduate) would be best for USC's endowment and academic goals. </p>

<p>Per Wiki:</p>

<p>USC
Undergraduates 18,316
Postgraduates 21,642</p>

<p>Columbia
Undergraduates 8,365
Barnard Undergraduates 2,360
Postgraduates 18,568</p>

<p>Harvard
Undergraduates 7,200
Postgraduates 14,000</p>

<p>Penn
Undergraduates 10,301
Postgraduates 11,028</p>

<p>Northwestern
Undergraduates 8,459
Postgraduates 10,759</p>

<p>Am I the only one that feels this way?</p>

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<p>Yes.</p>

<p>You are suggesting that USC should educate fewer people in order increase the status of the school. Do you really believe that the purpose of universities is status rather than education?</p>

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<p>Yes.</p>

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<p>Yes.</p>

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<p>Why would they contract Marshall, the one school that sends out graduates who actually contribute large sums of money to USC?</p>

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<p>wait until Nikias sees this…</p>

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<p>No. SeattleTW wholeheartedly agrees with you.</p>

<p>I agree on the point that USC needs to greatly increase its endowment per student.</p>

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<p>You are the only one who feels that way. Just because Harvard has a small population doesn’t mean USC has to have a small population. I personally think that it’s awesome they have such a large population. I love when there is a large group of people because it inherently means more variety (i.e. not the largely similar personalities every 20-30 people).</p>

<p>Sidenote: I don’t particularly understand why people compare schools. I’ve never gotten into that. Everyone needs to stop comparing USC to every other school. </p>

<p>If something is truly great, it needs no comparison. It doesn’t need to match up to other things or find faults in other things just to preserve its own rep. Its prestige speaks for itself.</p>

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<p>Yes - that would mean even fewer students would be able to attend. Even now, the film school - for instance - is at a 4% acceptance rate.</p>

<p>Who would you eliminate to bring class sizes down?</p>

<p>Also, you can’t just look at size of student body - but also the size of the facilities. And also if the student population was too large, it would be reflected through the existence of large class sizes. Outside of gen eds, that is not necessarily true.</p>

<p>Having so large an alumni network is also not a bad thing.</p>

<p>So no - I don’t think it is too large. What I would LIKE to see is more emphasis on hands-on student advising</p>

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<p>This obsession with prestige is embarrassing.</p>

<p>You can only do so much by limiting undergraduate admissions. If USC wants to increase it’s rankings, it needs to work on it’s professional and graduate programs. (Which it’s starting to do.)</p>

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<p>Modern Man is spot on. USC is far too large and the larger the size of an undergraduate student body, the greater the degradation of the undergraduate experience. In 1980 USC had about 16,000 students; the number decreased to about 15,000 in 2000, under President Sample’s adroit leadership. Since Nikias has taken the helm, however, USC has been headed in the wrong direction and in his quest to turn USC into a large and undistinguished institution like the public schools, the undergraduate educational experience has eroded. This is a fact. Nikias needs to turn USC in the opposite direction or leave. I am astonished at the size of USC, which is unprecedented. </p>

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<p>USC needs to reduce the size of the student population so that the endowment per person is higher; granted, another way to do that would be increasing the endowment significantly (which the administration is trying to do right now).</p>

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<p>If USC has the physical plant & faculty numbers to support 18k students, then why should it downsize its student body to some ARBITRARY number? Why should Beyonce dress in Gwenyth Paltrow’s clothes?</p>

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<p>As always, Seattle TW is way off and has failed to support any of his assertions (how FUN for ModernMan to now be so closely aligned with Seattle! Incongruous.). As president Sample left USC, the undergraduate population stood at 17,000 <a href=“http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2010/about_usc/”>http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2010/about_usc/&lt;/a&gt; , It is clear that USC not only GREW under Sample’s adroit leadership<a href=“phrasing%20courtesy%20of%20Seattle…”>/i</a>, it thrived (Seattle has invented the story/theory that Sample reduced the student population). The university has continued to grow and thrive under Nikias as evidenced by USC’s inclusion on that Oracle of college rankings, USNWR, list of Up-and-Coming schools <a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/up-and-coming”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/up-and-coming&lt;/a&gt; . </p>

<p>As for the endowment, this thread posted by our very own ModernMan before he went on vacation to Seattle <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/1615568-usc-3-fundraiser-in-2013.html#latest”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/1615568-usc-3-fundraiser-in-2013.html#latest&lt;/a&gt; links to recent articles about USC’s fundraising juggernaut. I see no evidence of negative impact from the current student population.</p>

<p>*As those who know me are aware, I find blind devotion to rankings to be silly and only include the info here for USNWR worshipers.</p>

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<p>Please, a lame mom, you as usual miss the point in your blind allegiance to Nikias. USC is now larger than UC Berkeley overall, with 39,958 vs. 36,204 students. This is not a good trend for USC undergraduates or the university. </p>

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<p>@SeattleTW why isn’t it? Why are you guys so obsessed about USC doing everything like Stanford/HYP? Part of its appeal is that it is nothing like these places and it provides students with a stellar education.</p>

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<p>As scahopeful points out, seattle has once again failed to support his assertions in any way (this is consistent throughout all of seattle’s rants, particularly his awful rants against transfer students). Why is it not a good trend? You have not supported you position at all.</p>

<p>P.S. Thanks for noticing my screen name! I picked it out for myself so I am pleased when people notice my intent. </p>

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<p>Because I went to the college and it was too large then, IMO. There is no way TAs do a better job than professors. At 18,000+ undergrads and counting, at least 40 percent did not matriculate from high school. That is an unacceptable number for any elite undergraduate education. Most of my detractors either did not attend USC for all four years in college or went to the graduate schools and thus care little about the undergraduate experience. Nikias’ intent is to raise tuition dollars at the expense of the overall undergraduate experience, something that deeply troubles me and other four-year graduates of the college.</p>

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<p>Sigh. Once again absolutely no support or citations for any of seattle’s silly statements.</p>

<p>As of the start of the 2013/2014 academic year, USC’s undergraduate student body was approximately 18,000 students, not 25.951 as seattle inexplicably stated <a href=“http://catalogue.usc.edu/about-usc/”>http://catalogue.usc.edu/about-usc/&lt;/a&gt; . What source can seattle cite that provides any criteria for “acceptable” v “unacceptable” numbers of undergraduates? What benefit would come from a particular number of undergraduates v the current number?</p>

<p>Yes, seatlle attended SC - it was in the 1980s, correct?</p>

<p>Tuition continues to rise at private and public universities across the nation - what support, evidence or citations can seattle provide to support his statement that increasing tuition will come at the expense of undergraduate education - the statement simply does not make sense.</p>

<p>I am sorry seattle is troubled. Other alumni watch the incredible rise of USC over the last two decades and appreciate that the diploma they earned in the past is automatically worth more than it was back then thanks to the incredibly talented, qualified and hard-working current student body.</p>

<p>seattle’s continuing rants against transfers are so unfounded, unsupported and silly that they do not deserve a response.</p>

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<p>EDIT - seattle went back and changed his wildly off-base number of undergraduates from 25,951 to 18,000 after I helpfully posted a citation for him. I am very glad to have been of help to this poster :slight_smile:</p>