UCLA, USC & Penn State, Part 1: By The Numbers

This is the first of a three-part series on the addition of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten.

Today — By The Numbers
Wednesday — Head to Head, Past & Future
Friday — Football

There are many ways to compare Penn State with both UCLA and USC, who will soon join the Big Ten Conference.

The two California schools will leave the Pac-12 Conference for the Big Ten on Aug. 2, 2024 – that’s a third of a century after Penn State left the independent ranks and officially joined the conference on June 4, 1990.

The addition of Penn State increased the Big Ten’s membership to 11 schools; the jump by UCLA and USC ups the Big Ten’s number of schools to 16 (and counting).

UCLA and USC asked to — UCLA’s athletic department, in a $102 million hole, needed to, actually — join the Big Ten for two reasons: Football and media rights money, paid primarily due to football. When the dust settles, each Big Ten school should receive more than $100 million annually from the conference, with the league office also garnering a share. (The last pre-pandemic payout was $55 million per school.)

The last time Penn State and USC met in football was in the 2017 Rose Bowl, an exciting back-and-forth contest that ended in the Trojans winning 52-49 on a game-ending 46-yard field goal— after the Nittany Lions led 42-27. USC leads the series, 6-4.

Penn State and UCLA last squared off in football in 1968, when the Nittany Lions beat the Bruins 21-6 in Los Angeles. UCLA leads the series, 4-2.

Though UCLA and USC are a bit more than a dozen miles apart, there are several differences between the schools — chief among them that UCLA is part of California’s 10-university system, while USC is a private school.

The leadership of Penn State and UCLA athletics is linked in a unique manner, emblematic of the peripatetic and opportunistic nature of college sports these days: Both schools have athletic directors whose previous job was AD at Boston College, albeit for relatively short stints.

UCLA’s Martin Jarmond was at BC for 37 months (2017-20), while Penn State’s Pat Kraft — whose official first day at PSU was July 1 — was at BC for 22 months (2020-22). Jarmond has extensive Big Ten roots, having served as an assistant athletic director at both Michigan State and Ohio State. USC athletic director Mike Bohn is a veteran AD, having led four schools before going to USC in November 2019.

Here’s how Penn State and its two newest Big Ten rivals compare in a few key additional areas:

Alumni
Penn State — 750,000 (22,633 in California; 15,000 more in western states Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington)
UCLA — 500,000
USC — 450,000

Undergraduates
Penn State / University Park — 40,639; 47% female, 53% male
UCLA / Los Angeles — 31,600; 59% female, 41% male
USC / Los Angeles — 21,000; 52% female, 48% male

Acceptance Rate
Penn State — 54%
UCLA — 14.3%
USC — 11.8%

2022-23 Tuition Rates
(PSU’s to be determined next week by the Board of Trustees; numbers below assume a 2.5% increase)
Penn State — $18,825 in-state, $36,845 out-of-state
UCLA — $13,704 in-state, $45,830 out-of-state
USC — $63,468 

Distance
UCLA to USC — 14.2 miles, 16 minutes via I-10 E on an early Sunday morning
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to University Park Airport (SEC) — 2,261 miles, 4 hours and 46 minutes

Academic Leader
Penn State — President Neeli Bendapudi, started May 9, 2022; previously president at University of Louisville, 2018-21
UCLA — Chancellor Gene Block, appointed 2007; previously VP/provost at the University of Virginia
USC — President Carol Folt, appointed July 2019; previously chancellor at North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 2013-2019

Athletic Director
Penn State — Pat Kraft, July 1, 2022 – present; Boston College, AD, May 2020 – April 2022; Temple, AD, 2015-20; assistant AD at Loyola, Indiana
UCLA — Martin Jarmond, May 2020 – present; Boston College AD, April 2017 – May 2020; assistant AD at Ohio State, Michigan State
USC — Mike Bohn, 2019 – present; previously AD at Cincinnati, Colorado, San Diego State, Idaho

SPORT & ROSTER BREAKDOWN

The following is based on the current rosters for each of the three schools, posted on the schools’ athletics websites, listed below:

Official Athletics Website
Penn State — GoPSUSports.com
UCLA — UCLABruins.com
USC — USCTrojans.com

NCAA Sports at Penn State, But Not UCLA/USC
Not at UCLA (10): Field hockey, men’s and women’s fencing, men’s gymnastics, men’s and women’s ice hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse, men’s swimming and diving, wrestling
Not at USC (13): Men’s cross country, field hockey, men’s and women’s fencing, men’s and women’s ice hockey, men’s and women’s gymnastics, men’s lacrosse, men’s swimming and diving, men’s soccer, softball, wrestling
NCAA Sports at USC and UCLA, But Not at Penn State (4): Women’s beach volleyball, women’s rowing, men’s and women’s water polo

NCAA Varsity Sports & Participants (according to online rosters)
Penn State — 31 sports: 16 men (501), 15 women (338)
UCLA — 23 sports: 10 men (314), 13 women (279)
USC — 21 sports: 9 men (295), 12 women (285)

Athletes’ Hometowns on Current Online Rosters (footprint = all states in conference)
Penn State — 329 from PA, 25 from California, 34 from Pac-12 Footprint
UCLA — 3 from PA, 434 from California, 22 from Big 10 footprint
USC — 7 from PA, 300 from California, 43 from Big 10 footprint