Will USC be an academic power house in the future?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
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<p>All undergraduates are not on the University Park campus at one time. Some take classes at the medical school, Others are at the Catalina Island Wrigley Institute. Large numbers of students take advantage of study abroad opportunities.</p>

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<p>I see nothing on the USC website that indicates class sizes have increased. I’m talking about number of students per classroom, not total undergraduate class.</p>

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<p>USC is adding an honors college?!
I guess you’re right, Seattle, USC is looking more like a public university. </p>

<p>I don’t like honors colleges. They insulate the best and create a hierarchy. </p>

<p>FYI: the best public university in the US doesn’t have an honors college. Like privates, everyone is considered honors. :)</p>

<p>USC has gotten the most it can by becoming more selective for undergrads…mostly by riding a demographic wave that floated a lot of boats. Increasing academic reputation of departments will take much longer, and there is a pretty good likelihood that it’ll never get there - in terms of renown across academic disciplines. </p>

<p>USC’s renown isn’t in traditional academic fields. I doubt it’ll become a powerhouse in physics, chemistry, political science, etc. USC has awesome professional schools. I think it should stick to its strengths and enhance those. </p>

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<p>What Honors College?</p>

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<p>^ simba:</p>

<p><a href=“http://village.usc.edu/”>http://village.usc.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>scroll down when the page is open… “USC Honors College”
"Honors Residential College
The Honors Residential College offers extraordinary opportunities for students who are ready for a particularly rigorous undergraduate experience at USC. The physical environs of the Honors Residential College reflects the highly personalized and intellectually stimulating experience that students in the Honors College receive: dedicated space for honors seminars and one-on-one advising, along with social and scholarly activities. More than a living space, the Honors Residential College presents academic, cultural, and social activities—at an appropriately challenging level—that will inspire exceptional students to reach their full potential.</p>

<p>Students in the Honors Residential College will receive mentoring by top university faculty, as well as unique opportunities to learn from renowned civic and business leaders, accomplished artists, dignitaries, and other highly influential individuals. In this community of highly motivated individuals, students will be guided and inspired to fully develop their demonstrated leadership, scholarship, and citizenship abilities."</p>

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<p>UCB, from what I can tell, USC is calling its living areas “Residential Colleges,” and the Honors Residential College is a living area where academics is a focus. It’s not a separate honors school within the larger university. I believe places like Oxford and Caltech do the same type of thing with their House Systems.</p>

<p>Here are some other “Residential Colleges” at USC - <a href=“http://sait.usc.edu/ResEd/residential.asp”>http://sait.usc.edu/ResEd/residential.asp&lt;/a&gt; </p>

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<p>UCB’s point is well made. The idea of enhancing the quality of the USC student body is to make such distinctions irrelevant. Years ago, the Thematic (“Traumatic”) Option and Faculty-in-Residence (“Recluse”) programs were designed to do just that, but more importantly, to give the top students a feeling of being in a smaller academic setting. As USC has dramatically improved, arguably the need for such programs has diminished. For example, the average freshman entering today would easily qualify for the TO program of decades ago (when there were fewer than 100). Recognizing that USC is growing at an alarming rate, but obviously not wanting to turn away any paying student, the administration sees the need to adopt such superfluous societies to prevent students from feeling alienated.</p>

<p>I went to law school at the University of Michigan, one of the “public ivies,” lol. I observed students on registration week camping out in hallways for days in order to sign up for general education classes. I also observed students at play, and there were so many who wanted to enter frat parties that fire marshals were on hand because bodies were literally packed wall to wall, with undergrads using window sills as “seats.” I enrolled in one undergraduate class and every day was like a game of musical chairs, with students having to stand in the rear and sides because they lacked sufficient chairs. Even at USC, I never experienced feeling like a number lost in a sea of undergrads. (The four friends of mine at USC who transferred from Cal and UCLA expressed that this is one of the reasons they left those schools for USC.)</p>

<p>The ONLY defense I have of the administration is that it appears, despite their collective lack of leadership, the fall class size has been increasing, which means the yield is improving, but presently I need to investigate the rates over time and don’t have the figures at hand. That said, if indeed the yield is increasing, then the administration needs to reduce the number of transfers to keep USC’s student body manageable. Herein lies the administration’s weakness: they lack the ability or foresight to “cap” the size of the student body – based largely on the fact most are public-schooled and don’t see the need to do so – which simply needs to be done to keep USC from morphing into the University of California at Los Angeles or Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Virginia or another “public ivy,” lol, or Georgia, San Diego State, Oklahoma, Irvine, etc.</p>

<p>Also, we really need to scrap all academic programs like TO that have become largely irrelevant. If the student body becomes more manageable in size, then all USC undergrads will have the benefit afforded to those in the TO program (e.g., all classes taught by full professors).</p>

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<p>Adding to what UCB said, honors college don’t just insulate, they exclude, as the incoming statistics of many students are higher and at the top of their class. Whether it is an honors college or honors housing, how is it decided who gets in? Does the kid that has a 4.5 and 2300 SAT but didn’t get offered a scholarship because of some facet of the holistic process not deserve to be honors? USC has too many top achievers nowadays and is giving the money to a few of those and a lot of other groups that don’t have those marks. It will only be so long before the over achievers that don’t get anything coming in (some because it is obvious they can pay or they don’t fit the demographic du jour) realize they aren’t getting the benefits they deserve as well mentioned below, and go to another school that won’t shun them aside as second class students. And begins the downslide.</p>

<p>"Honors Residential College
The Honors Residential College offers extraordinary opportunities for students who are ready for a particularly rigorous undergraduate experience at USC. The physical environs of the Honors Residential College reflects the highly personalized and intellectually stimulating experience that students in the Honors College receive: dedicated space for honors seminars and one-on-one advising, along with social and scholarly activities. More than a living space, the Honors Residential College presents academic, cultural, and social activities—at an appropriately challenging level—that will inspire exceptional students to reach their full potential.</p>

<p>Students in the Honors Residential College will receive mentoring by top university faculty, as well as unique opportunities to learn from renowned civic and business leaders, accomplished artists, dignitaries, and other highly influential individuals. In this community of highly motivated individuals, students will be guided and inspired to fully develop their demonstrated leadership, scholarship, and citizenship abilities."</p>

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<p>Lots of colleges have honors programs where students must apply and be selected for admission. Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, …</p>

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<p>I don’t believe Stanford or HYP have any residential honors programs, precisely because all of their students would qualify, lol. Cal and UCLA, on the other hand, have residential honors programs precisely because otherwise, they could not attract top achieving high schoolers because of the schools’ huge sizes. The idea of having a residential honors program at USC just highlights USC’s academic weakness due to its fast-growing size, and needs to be scuttled. Again, the only way to do so is to shrink the class sizes across the board so the students don’t feel stratified, as they are becoming each year. Boy are the administrators clueless…</p>

<p>P.S.: The idea of residential honors programs in this country is more applicable to large and impersonal public schools, highlighting, yet again, the public-school focus of the USC administration.</p>

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<p>I have to correct myself here. My cursory research indicates neither Cal nor Ucla has residential honors programs in part due to cost. Stanford, like USC, has a number of departmental honors programs, which are different than residential programs or Thematic Option. I participated in my major honors program that required an undergraduate thesis. The prize is the word “honors” next to your major on your diploma. I’m fine with such programs because they’re completely open to all who do the extra work. But I’m fundamentally opposed to the residential honors program and TO, even though I was a former participant, for the reasons stated.</p>

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<p>Lots of Ivies and other top-ranked privates have various honors programs, directed studies programs (USC’s Thematic Options would fall into this category,) scholars programs, etc., for which students have to be specially selected for admission. It only took a few minutes of searching to find that, in addition to Stanford - Yale, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Brown, Cornell, MIT, and Penn are colleges that offer these types of programs. And it’s hardly an exhaustive list.</p>

<p>A Residential Honors College, which is really just a hoity-toity name for an academically-oriented dorm, is simply another offering along those lines. It’s grasping at straws to argue that something this trivial indicates USC is on the decline. It’s not like “Residential Honors College” is going to be on anyone’s diploma, or anyone is going to be saying, “I graduated from the Residential Honors College at USC.”</p>

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<p>Honors College is no reason to over react and say USC is like a state school. It’s like Thematic Option. It provides a more academic focus, but there’s just as many smart people outside of it who chose not to do it. Because it’s a living arrangement my understanding is that it may be offered to incoming students and incoming students may apply to it. Do you think when TO was introduced people said it’s going to create a hierarchy?</p>

<p>TuckerTroy: I appreciate your perspective, but I think the statement “when they can get that same large, impersonal university setting at our state flagships” misses so much about USC. Two of the huge ones are the academic opportunities for undergrads, including research, and the prestigious alumni network. </p>

<p>“war being waged by the administration against the undergraduates” is ridiculous. A lot of what the administration does is to improve the undergraduate experience. While the larger undergrad student can be concerning, I haven’t seen a coherent argument about why it’s so bad. Also, you can’t prove that bigger class sizes give a definitively lower quality experience. One of the best classes I took was more than 60 people, and if it had been small then we wouldn’t have had such a real world and collaborative learning experience.</p>

<p>Like simba9, I’m waiting for SeattleTW to post real data. </p>

<p>In the meantime I’ll do it. ** 1998 to 2013 (~15 years) ** (most recent year available used. I didn’t go into the notes.)
From the following we can see trends across several important areas: Revenues, Assets, Debt, Endowment, Tuition, FA, Enrollment, Degrees Conferred, and Faculty. Overall everything has increased, but let me point out some highlights noting that it’s been relatively linear increases excepting two years of economic downturn (dotcom bust and housing fallout).</p>

<p>Financial:
Revenues: 1.3 Bil to 3.9 Bil (3x, 2.6 Bil)
Assets: 2.9 Bil to 7.65 Bil (2.6x, 4.75 Bil)
Debt: 300 Mil to 973 Mil (3.25x, 673 Mil)
Endowment: 1.4 Bil to 3.5 Bil (2.5x, 2.1 Bil)
Tuition: 20k to 43.7k (2.2x, 23.7k)
FA: 160 Mil to 389 Mil (2.4x, 229 Mil)

  • FA increased slightly more than Tuition, which I think is a good thing.</p>

<p>Population:
Undergrads: 15.4k to 18k (17% increase, 2.6k)
Grads: 12.9k to 22k (70% increase, 9.1k)

  • The grad student increase has been so much more than the undergrad increase. Grad students are not eligible for FA like undergrads so their tuition fees are an important source of income, and admitting more helps there be more funding which positively impacts undergrads. Stated another way, allowing more grad students in, and them paying full COA allows for more funding for undergrads without the number of undergrads increasing as much.
    Conferred Bachelors: 3621 to 4915 (36% increase, 1294)
    Conferred (Masters, PhD): 3765 to 6815 (80% increase, 3050)
  • Increases from more students at USC and ultimately graduating grows the alumni network and higher grad rates help the universities image. I don’t think the degrees are devalued by conferring more each year. To the contrary, the higher bar for admission now has increased the prestige of the degree as the student body has increased in caliber.
    Full-time Faculty: 2398 to 3563 (50% increase, 1165)
  • When the total student body was 28.3k and had 2398 ft faculty the absolute student to ft faculty ratio was 11.8. Now with 40k students and 3563 ft faculty the ratio is 11.2. One could surmise that this means class sizes are smaller and undergrads get more interaction with faculty. Note this doesn’t include the 1000+ part-time faculty.
    <a href=“http://about.usc.edu/files/2011/07/USCFR.1999.pdf”>http://about.usc.edu/files/2011/07/USCFR.1999.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (oldest published document available)
    <a href=“https://about.usc.edu/files/2011/07/USCFR.2011.pdf”>https://about.usc.edu/files/2011/07/USCFR.2011.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (most recent published document)
    <a href=“Facts and Figures - About USC”>http://about.usc.edu/facts/&lt;/a&gt; (most recent stats and has links to the years in between)</p>

<p>Admission rates have been getting more selective every year, with this year being the most selective.
17.8% admission rate: 51800 applicants with 9225 admitted for 2750 spots

<p>Having a larger undergrad class now is less important than the higher quality students. If we can dramatically increase quality while gradually increasing quantity and keeping the undergrad experience just as great, why wouldn’t we?</p>

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<p>This thread contains so many assumptions about the new “Residential Honors College”. The description of the new USC Village does not say it is an Honors Program. I am a current USC parent and I’d like to clarify for new students/parents: USC freshman dorms are called Residential Colleges. The proposed Residential Honors College does not sound different from Birnkrant. Currently, Birnkrant is a dorm for only Presidential/Trustee/Mork/Stamps Scholarship students. Many of those students are in Thematic Option or Freshman Science Honors Programs. Perhaps the new Residential Honors College is a new home for those students instead of Birnkrant which is an old building. I don’t know, but it seems extremely premature to make the assumption that USC is changing their honors programs. </p>

<p>About 210 freshman are accepted into the Thematic Option Honors Program each year. It is true that now that USC is very selective, many more would qualify, however the program requires more reading and writing then other gen ed’s , and students may choose to focus more on for example, the sciences or cinema, That does not “diminish” the need or value at all. My daughter loves the Thematic Option program, and many students choose USC because of it. </p>

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<p>I think we are all making assumptions to a point, all of which have some validity. If I were a UCLA Regent Scholar alumnus, for example, I might argue that a large student body was perfectly fine and did not affect my education, especially since I had parking privileges all four years, woo hoo! Or if I had graduated from other fine public schools, like Oklahoma, UC Irvine, San Diego SU, Georgia, Virginia, or similar state schools, and was at the top of my class in several honors and residential programs, I might also say I received the same education I would have at USC, Stanford, Harvard, Yale or Princeton, choke, choke. </p>

<p>On the other hand, if I were a freshman trying to weigh an application from USC or Cal, I might ask myself, where will I feel more comfortable, and what distinguishing characteristics does each school offer? </p>

<p>At least at the high school level, we have hard data that large class size hurts students. </p>

<p><a href=“Redirect Notice”>Redirect Notice;

<p>Turning to college, the perspectives change, depending upon what a student is looking for:</p>

<p><a href=“Redirect Notice”>Redirect Notice;

<p><a href=“Redirect Notice”>Redirect Notice;

<p>Putting the observations aside, USC is undoubtedly becoming larger and more similar to a state school, and if we march toward and blow through the 20,000 mark, as the USC administration appears to be pushing us, then they will have achieved their objective of transforming USC into a private version of a state school, with a huge student body, less personal interaction among faculty and students, less personal interaction at the residential level, more TAs lecturing freshmen and sophomores, fewer academic advisers per student, and the need for more honors and other programs to enable students to feel less isolated and alienated. All of this in the framework of a postage-sized physical plant in the middle of L.A., and the picture that paints itself is bleak. USC has been hijacked by an administration that cares more about the graduate and professional schools than the college; the war against the undergraduates is continuing, and by creating another residential honors program the administrators are trying to figure out yet another way to prevent students from feeling alienated, based upon their own public school experiences and the types of remedies to which large state schools resort.</p>

<p>Regarding TO, if the program has changed and is opened to all who apply, then I’m okay with it. Hey, if Professors Nyomarkay and Green (if they are still there) are open to allowing all freshmen into their seminars, then I’m also okay because even the “dumbest” student at USC is paying the same amount as those who received a Trustee Scholarship and should be afforded the same rights and privileges as those honors students. Like any bureaucracy, TO has outlived its usefulness, but those who manage the program, along with the participating professors, will find a “need” and way to keep it alive, despite its obsolescence. There are plenty of high school honors students who will gladly attend USC if admitted, despite the absence of TO or other honors programs, Phi Beta Kappa excepted, of course. ;)</p>

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<p>Seattle, why do you keep making it seem like state schools are so bad? There are some very good non-privates out there with top programs. Also, I notice that you’re only comparing USC to HYPS instead of the other 18 schools ranked ahead of it (as if rankings mattered anyway, just using your own logic to prove a point). It’s like you’re obsessed with the other schools and desperately want USC to be like those schools.</p>

<p>You should just come out and say what you really want to say: “I wish USC was an Ivy League school so that I can say I went to an one”. That’s what you’re strongly hinting at, which I don’t understand anyway because Ivy League doesn’t automatically make you better. There are just as many uncultured, unemployed Ivy League graduates as there are students who attended similar schools. Academically, USC is one of those ‘similar schools’ however, the experience you get there is said to be completely different from other schools that are just as academically strong (i.e. the schools you keep mentioning). The one thing that makes USC stand out is its student body. Diverse student body = plenty of opportunities to join clubs/organizations, find your own informal group of similar students, and plenty of networking opportunities which (combined with an excellent education) almost always translates into post undergraduate employment and a more cultured individual.</p>

<p>Sad part about your entire point in this discussion is that USC is already a great school, is only getting better, and the folks at 'SC have proven that they don’t need to limit the student population to be ‘elite’.</p>

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<p>After some research, I retract my statement about reducing the student population. USC’s 9:1 student faculty ratio is extremely impressive for the size of the university. Seattle, when you compare the student to faculty ratio to other top tier universities with MUCH smaller UG student body population, I think you will change your mind too.</p>

<p>Per US News (University, US News Ranking, UG Student Population, Student to Faculty Ratio):</p>

<p>University of Southern California, #23, 18316, 9:1
Carnegie Mellon University, #23, 6279, 11:1
Georgetown University, #20, 7552, 11:1
University of Notre Damn, #18, 8475, 11:1
Rice University, #18, 3848, 9:1
*Cornell University, #16, 14261, 9:1
Johns Hopkins University, #12, 6153, 10:1</p>

<p>Below is a list of universities with Student Faculty Ratios just slightly better than USC:</p>

<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology, #7, 4503, 8:1
*Dartmouth College, #10, 4193, 8:1
*Brown University, #14, 6453, 8:1
Washington University, #14, 7259, 8:1
Vanderbilt University, #17, 6796, 8:1</p>

<p>Below are the top public universities ratio’s with similar sizes to USC. You will see they dont even come close to USC’s number.</p>

<p>University of California, Berkeley, #20, 25774, 17:1
University of California, Los Angeles, #23, 27951, 16:1
University of Virginia, #23, 15882, 16:1
University of Michigan, #28, 27979, 16:1
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, #30, 18503, 14:1.</p>

<p>Furthermore, the below universities are large private universities with some prestige, but you will see their student body ratios are more similar to public schools. </p>

<p>New York University, #32, 22498, 10:1
Boston University, #41, 18306, 13:1
George Washington University, #51, 10464, 13:1
Brigham Young University, Provo, #62, 31606, 23:1 </p>

<p>Because of the above data, I am no longer worried about USC’s size.</p>

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<p>Yes, Modern man, that statistic is indeed impressive, but don’t let it fool you into believing for one moment that it is dispositive on the issue of whether USC is headed down the wrong path by getting larger. The administration has added the equivalent of another class in ten years! And don’t lose sight of the fact USC is private and needs to remain smaller than the publics to remain competitive with HYSP.</p>

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<p>One point I haven’t seen raised – How many new degree programs are there? In other words, to what extent can the growing student body be attributed to a greater number of academic programs?</p>

<p>In the next year or two, there will be more students because USC will be opening a dance school. Were the Iovine-Young Academy and World Business program expected to cannibalize existing related programs, or were they intended to attract whole new categories of students?</p>

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<p>Good point, also, we’ve to this point ignored the international student body, which is huge and growing too. </p>