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Dear Colleagues,
We are writing to provide you with important updates to two benefits: the Tuition Assistance Benefit (“TAB”) program and our 2024 Winter Recess plans. We apologize for any confusion and ensuing frustration that has arisen over the past week from our Academic Senate and Staff Assembly updates. We hope you will read this document carefully. The details outlined here differ a bit from what was discussed publicly and from some information circulating online. Thank you for your patience. We care deeply about the wellbeing of everyone at USC and appreciate all you do to make the university strong.
The Headlines: The university continues to have a robust set of benefits, placing USC among the leaders in our peer group. While there will be several changes to our TAB program, this benefit remains a priority, and we will continue to invest in it. Details on TAB follow but please note that the 15-year service benefit will remain in place for eligible employees. Additionally, for anyone currently enrolled in and using TAB, existing benefits will remain unchanged through the completion of their program, provided they do not have a break in enrollment. This simply continues the policy that has been in place since 2019.
We also plan to add three additional paid days during this Winter Recess – December 24, 2024, and January 2-3, 2025, in addition to the standard period that has been in place as the Paid Winter Recess Policy since 2015. More details on both benefits are outlined below.
Background: For many years, USC’s compensation and benefits have been strong. However, our last overall evaluation of benefits was in 2006, and over the last decade, salaries slowly began to lag behind in the market. After evaluating this trend, and hearing from employees that competitive wages and salaries are very important to them, we announced the Presidential Moonshot in 2022 – USC Competes. This Moonshot focuses on increasing the competitiveness of our compensation programs by the start of FY27. We are very pleased that having made close to $500 million in additional investments by the start of FY25, we exceeded our targets by more than one year. In order to make these investments, we are working to control benefits costs while keeping them competitive and affordable.
Updated TAB Offerings Effective Summer 2025:
This is the first adjustment to TAB since slight adjustments were made in 2018 and 2019. We reviewed programs at 34 peer institutions and found that the majority offer tuition assistance benefits only to active employees and dependents working toward undergraduate degrees. Moreover, virtually all peers who offer TAB benefits restrict them to dependent children, up to age 26, for use toward a single undergraduate degree, and are not available toward graduate degrees. More than 60 percent of our peers do not offer any tuition support for spouses and partners, and an even greater fraction do not cover graduate certificates for faculty and staff. It was critical to us to make certain that our benefits program would remain among the most competitive of our peers, even after making several cost-effective changes.
As noted above, the TAB program will continue unchanged through the completion of the program for those currently enrolled, provided they do not have a break in enrollment.
The TAB program will continue to offer the most central and heavily used elements:
- 100 percent tuition assistance for our full-time, active faculty and staff to pursue undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate degrees.
- 100 percent tuition assistance for each eligible dependent child to earn an undergraduate degree, plus the opportunity for Tuition Exchange benefits
- The 15-year service benefit provision (also known as the “15-year letter”) for those employees hired prior to July 1, 2011, and who have accrued 15 years of eligible service, will remain in place and continue to be subject to the terms and conditions of the TAB policy effective at the time of enrollment, which as of summer 2025 will include those set forth below.
The changes to the program, which will be effective as of summer 2025, are as follows:
- Spouses and registered domestic partners will be eligible for 25 percent of their tuition cost to be covered for a maximum of one degree program.The age cap for the dependent children of all faculty and staff will be 26 years of age (consistent with health plan coverage).
- Graduate certificates will no longer be covered for faculty or staff.
- Graduate studies will no longer be covered for dependents.
To support you, we have put together some frequently asked questions. If you have specific questions related to your use of TAB, our HR Service Center and TAB teams are here to help at uschr@usc.edu.
Extended Days for 2024 Winter Recess:
We first introduced extended Winter Recess days (added to the standard period granted by the Paid Winter Recess Policy) because of COVID-19 during the 2020 winter recess. They were meant to be a one-time way to give our university staff a much-needed respite. We offered them again in 2021, 2022, and 2023. This year, we will again be adding three days – Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024; Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025; and Friday, Jan. 3, 2025 – to the Winter Recess period for university staff, the same as last year.
We will return to the office on Monday, January 6, 2025. As in past years, staff in divisions or units that cannot close completely during Winter Recess will be able to work with their supervisor to take off the equivalent number of regular Winter Recess hours at an alternative time consistent with university policy and department needs.
The Winter Recess period for Keck Medicine of USC employees remains unchanged. Eligible Keck Medicine employees will receive up to 24 Winter Recess hours under the health system’s policy or applicable agreements. A follow-up communication to Keck Medicine employees with more details will be shared shortly.
Thank you again for your patience.
Sincerely,
Andrew Guzman
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Steve Shapiro
Senior Vice President for Health Affairs
Stacy Giwa
Interim Senior Vice President HR, Equity, and Compliance
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