July 11, 2024
Dear Colleagues,
I write today to share the exciting yet bittersweet news that Kedra Ishop, USC’s vice president of enrollment management for the last four years, will be leaving August 15 to join the College Board. She will serve as its new senior vice president of higher education, membership and access, and, as secretary of the corporation, will lead its newly reconfigured Higher Education, Membership and Access (HMA) division.
For those of us who have worked closely with Kedra, it’s no surprise that she would take this high-profile next step. For more than two decades, Kedra has been a national leader and recognized expert in admissions, recruitment, financial aid and enrollment policies, and issues of access for low-income students and students from under-represented backgrounds. As these issues of critical national importance continue to affect millions of Americans, her expertise and experience at USC and now at the College Board will be invaluable.
During her tenure here, USC has recruited, admitted and enrolled exemplary classes of new students – and achieved record high yields near 49 percent. From her start, Kedra embraced our presidential moonshot, the Affordability Initiative, which awards free tuition to first-year undergraduate students whose families earn $80,000 or less; we have subsequently offered $274 million in financial aid to qualified candidates. Since the fall 2020 semester, 20 percent of all new first-year students have benefited from this groundbreaking initiative, and I’m pleased that a third of these students are first in their families to attend a four-year higher education institution. This past academic year, we raised an all-time high—$124 million—in scholarship support.
Kedra’s many achievements at USC include leading an exceptional team who have managed the greatest number of applications in USC’s history; successfully implemented USC’s first Early Action program; launched “Trojan International,” a more modern and robust immigration management system; focused on new educational equity opportunities, including our new President’s High-Tech Scholars program; and led USC to become an inaugural member in the Small Town and Rural Students Network Initiative.
Prior to USC, she served as the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor’s first vice provost for enrollment management for six years. Before that, she worked in admissions for 17 years at the University of Texas at Austin in roles including vice provost and director of admissions.
A continuing hallmark of Kedra’s career is the pursuit of excellence, accessibility and affordability. She has been open about her interest in advancing these goals nationwide and
has a longstanding relationship with the College Board. She was a founding member of the College Board Access and Diversity Initiative, a group that provides information and tools to higher education institutions to create policies and practices in support of educational access and diversity, and has served in a number of additional advisory capacities.
As sad as I am to see her go, in this new role, Kedra will expand her focus from a single university to the entire country, and I know students everywhere will benefit.
It has been a pleasure working with Kedra and I speak for us all in thanking her for transformational leadership, partnership and friendship. Her commitment to recruiting and supporting the best students from around the globe will have long-lasting impact on our university. She also leaves us with a first-in-class team that has managed historic levels of admissions and aid applications, and who successfully navigated the enrollment challenges presented by the COVID era. They are ready to carry us seamlessly forward during this transition.
Please join me in wishing Kedra well and applauding her as she takes a lead on the national stage at such an important time.
Sincerely,
Carol L. Folt
President