@ucbalumnus It’s not that they deserve the stereotype anymore, but they’re still working at distancing themselves from that reputation, so they probably feel the need to take PR steps that the other colleges involved in the scandal did not feel were necessary.
@simba9 I don’t know about this being a long-term goal. The new president just started there last July, and replaced an interim president who was appointed in August 2018. The previous president’s main aim was to raise the academic and research profile of USC (something at which he was unbelievably successful). The philosophy of USC during that time was to provide merit-based scholarships to high performing low-income applicants.
Moving to full support to all kids who are accepted whose families make less than $80,000 is not only to combat the “rich kids U” reputation, but to combat the idea that USC is not an academically “elite” college, since “full need met” is a sign of an “elite” college in the USA today. It announces that the college believes that any student it accepts is good enough, that USC will make sure that they will be able to afford to attend.
Based on what I read about Nikias, it would seem to me that he would have expanded the number and amounts of merit aid to low income students, which is why I think that it is relatively new. Moreover, under Nikias, USC had been extremely successful at recruiting high achieving low income students, compared to other “elite” colleges, so I’m not sure that he would have pushed to change the way that low income students were supported.
In fact, under the previous process for recruiting low income students, they have been more successful than most other “elite” colleges, including all of the “full ride for under XXX income” ones. Only UCLA and UCB have higher proportions of students with Pell grants than USC.