Last Friday, Oct. 10, the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences announced it would lay off 162 employees, including nearly all academic advisors. The announcement comes less than two weeks after all 57 academic advisors at the Viterbi School of Engineering were given 60 days’ notice of their layoffs on Sept. 29.
The Dornsife employees who were laid off were informed over a Zoom meeting on Friday, Oct. 10, according to staff who were present at the meeting. They were told they had 10 calendar days to reapply for 115 positions, as part of USC’s ongoing restructuring in an effort to reduce a projected $200 million budget deficit from the 2025 fiscal year.
“I’m sure I can speak on behalf of many of my colleagues when I say that we were devastated to learn that over 160 staff members in various roles had been laid off on a Zoom call,” said Rita Barakat, an assistant professor of biological sciences and neuroscience.
The deadline for laid-off Dornsife employees to reapply for the reduced number of positions is Monday, Oct. 20th.
“It makes it really hard to work because essentially they’re telling you, ‘Your time’s up, but get back to work,’ especially when you have only ten days to work on your CV and resume,” said Jonah Cano, a Dornsife student services assistant who was informed last Friday that his termination date would be Dec. 17. “Everybody is distraught. It’s still really hard to believe.”
The restructuring will result in a centralized academic advising model, according to an email statement from Dornsife to Annenberg Media. Cano said the new centralized hub means employees will report directly to Dornsife, as opposed to specialized departments.
“We’re reorganizing the academic advising structure to provide students with more consistent, coordinated support across programs,” Dornsife wrote in the email statement. “By creating a centralized advising model, staff will be cross-trained to assist students in multiple related majors, ensuring timely support even when individual advisors are unavailable.”
Dornsife students were officially informed of the restructuring in an emailed letter from school administrators on Wednesday evening.
“You may have already heard that Dornsife is making changes to the organizational structure in the staffing of our student advising services. Some concerns have been shared with us about this process, and we would like to clarify any misconceptions,” the letter read. “First and foremost: Academic advising in Dornsife will continue without interruption.”
Prior to the university email, many students had already heard word of further layoffs from other places.
“Viterbi was the first school with [advisors] cut, and then the rumor came trickling down in classes that Dornsife was next,” said Jack Murphy, a senior political science major. “And then Annenberg Media reported on Monday that support staff had been cut within Dornsife.”
Elizabeth Cisneros-Oakes, a junior political science major, said a professor told her on Monday that there were going to be “really big layoffs.”
Registration for spring 2026 classes begins on Oct. 28, according to the USC academic calendar. Academic advisors provide students support during the registration process.
Dornsife’s “restructuring plan won’t be implemented for several more weeks,” according to the emailed statement from Dornsife. Students expressed worries about decreased bandwidth of advisors following the restructuring.
“They’re saying, ‘Don’t worry, the advisement is going to continue,’ but if we don’t have a lot of academic advisors, how are we going to make it so all these students are getting mandatory advisement?” Cisneros-Oakes said. “Dornsife is the biggest school on campus… the advisors are going to be so overwhelmed.”
Cano said under the restructuring, Dornsife advisors may be challenged in focusing on a much wider array of majors at the largest school on campus.
“[Advisors] could be taking up possibly three different majors as opposed to only focusing on one and having a handful of new students,” Cano said. “Fundamentally, it’s going to be a lot different because the students are not going to be receiving the same individual care.”
Barakat echoed concerns about the decrease in the amount of support staff available to students, but added there may be ways to adapt to the change.
“I anticipate that it will take time for our college to adjust to this lopsided ratio,” Barakat said. “That said, I am also hopeful that knowing how brilliant our students are, there may be an opportunity for advising to be more peer-oriented.”
The layoffs at Dornsife and Viterbi bring USC’s total layoff count to at least 700 since July 2025.
In an Oct. 3 letter to the economic and workforce development department for the city of Los Angeles, USC officials wrote “the University anticipates that additional separations will occur after the dates provided.” The letter designated the earliest effective termination date as Nov. 30, 2025 and the last effective termination date as Jan. 1, 2026, and added employees were being notified at least 60 days before their terminations would occur.
“It’s going to result in a very chaotic couple of weeks [especially] come spring semester,” Cano said. “And most likely for the rest of that entire semester, until they realize this might not work.”