On Tuesday morning, outgoing USC President Carol Folt delivered her sixth and final State of the University address in Bovard Auditorium.
Folt’s speech contained five main tenets: issues the Board of Trustees expected her to resolve when she was first hired in 2019, changes at the university during her tenure, innovative initiatives USC has taken and implemented, a response to external factors such as the Los Angeles wildfires and executive orders from the Trump administration and a nod to the university’s future and appreciation of the USC community.
Folt spoke about rebounding the university’s finances after two major shocks: the COVID-19 pandemic and over $2.5 billion in legal fees.
She addressed the financial situation of the university and the deficit that it operated in during the 2024 fiscal year.
“These operating costs [and] salary pressures we’re all facing — that’s every university. In America, I think they said 80% of the universities have had operating cost deficits over the last three years, at least two of the last three years, and a lot of that is because costs have exceeded tuition,” Folt said.
“It’s also because we’ve had inflation — we all have to self-insure. That’s a major cost every year that’s been added. We’re in a very expensive city, so those [Cost-of-Living Adjustment] rates have been high, but that’s been really contributing, and there is a weakening of the market of students for a lot of schools, even for us. Recently, our graduate student numbers are down.”
“The university, together with the board, has really been looking for a sustainable financial model, and we have our university in three factions. There’s the top research university, we’re a top leading health system and we’re a top athletic franchise, each with different ways to fund and different pressures,” Folt said. “So we’ve started to look at the three of them separately and bring them all back to develop that sustainable model.”
Folt emphasized that while USC is a private institution, it does not receive as much funding as Ivy League universities, for example, and is tuition-dependent. Tuition has increased around 5% each year since 2022.
While the university has expanded and evolved over the last six years, Folt also took the time to address future changes that may affect the university after her departure.
Folt spoke about the uncertainties regarding the Trump administration’s policies and executive orders. She called the uncertainty regarding visas “a big issue for us.”
In regards to Trump’s executive orders, Folt said “I can’t give you reassurance it’s not going to stop feeling very chaotic right now, but I will tell you that people are working on it every single day.”
“We’ll give you more specific information as we really understand it.”
USC’s office of Inclusion and Diversity was absorbed by the USC Culture Team on Friday, February 28.
“I think with something like DEI, the important thing is to say what you mean.” Folt said the university is examining its programs to ensure compliance with new laws under the Trump administration. She said programs should not separate students based on race or gender “in a very obvious way.”
The new Provost-Senate Task Force, created on January 15, is taking on the challenge of examining the university’s existing policies while also “looking at the application of academic freedom in the classroom,” according to Folt.
Folt spent a large amount of time detailing the changes made to the university over her six-year tenure.
Folt said when she first started as president, the USC Board of Trustees was clear on what they wanted from her. They wanted Folt to help modernize the school, “take on” the scandals the university was dealing with at the time, fix athletics and to bring students “back at the center” of the university’s focus, as well to make sure the university was positioned well for the future.
Some of the largest changes and initiatives during Folt’s tenure included: guiding the university through the COVID-19 pandemic, offering free tuition to families earning under $80,000 per year, opening the USC Capital Campus in Washington, D.C., her “moonshot” initiatives, redoing and expanding the cultural centers on campus, launching the new USC School of Advanced Computing and opening the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Human-Centered Computation Hall, moving from the PAC-12 to the Big Ten, launching a USC initiative in India and furthering university-government relations through the creation of the Trojan Caucus.
Folt also stated that admissions to USC and research are at a historic all-time high. Research hit almost $1.3 billion for fiscal year 2024, according to Folt, while applicants to the university hit 83,000 for the incoming Fall 2025 freshman class.
Folt’s tenure has been tumultuous, from the COVID-19 pandemic, Varsity Blues scandal, financial roadblocks and student encampment controversies to university-wide sustainability initiatives.
While Folt is leaving as president, she plans to remain a member of the USC community as a professor in the Viterbi School of Engineering.
Current USC senior vice president and general counsel Beong-Soo Kim will serve as the interim president of the university beginning July 1, 2025.