USC announced that it will cover tuition and fees for in-state students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class and whose family has a household income of less than $80,000 a year starting in 2024.
The new scholarship program, the USC Commitment Initiative, will reward scholarships to students beginning with next fall's freshman class.
The initiative will cover four years’ worth of tuition and academic fees for eligible students, and will expand on a program announced in August to admit all in-state students who graduated in the top 10% of their high school class.
The program will be funded in conjunction with other aid programs, such as Pell Grants or Palmetto Fellows Scholarships. Money for the initiative was approved by the South Carolina General Assembly last legislative session.
University leaders said they want the program to make USC more accessible to students from rural parts of the state as opposed to making them attend other universities or go straight into the workforce or military.
Last year, USC received 30 or fewer applications from students applying from Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Fairfield, Jasper, Lee, Marlboro, McCormick and Union counties, said vice president for enrollment management Scott Verzyl.
USC admitted 350 eligible students the past admissions cycle, and Verzyl said he hopes the number will continue to increase.
In fall 2023, in-state tuition at USC's Columbia campus was $12,688, and the average of academic fees was $1,572, according to a press release dated Oct. 13.
“What we did on Aug. 1 was address access, but access without affordability, in many cases, is meaningless,” USC President Michael Amiridis said in an interview.