Consider this time-honored taunt:
The USC marching band strikes up "Tribute to Troy," arousing fans to keep tempo by flashing their fingers in a victory sign. In the opposing bleachers, UCLA students begin to mock them by waving luxury-car keys. Or dollar bills. Or credit cards.
"They're trying to say we're all spoiled rich kids," said Summer Neilson, one of USC's blond, blue-eyed song leaders. "You know, USC, University of Spoiled Children. And they're all poor Bruins. It's so lame."
Lame? Perhaps.
But stereotypes matter. Enough that image-conscious USC officials have gone so far as to take out ads claiming that it's UCLA where the rich kids are: "The average family income of students at California's flagship public universities is higher than the average family income of USC students."
The figures they rely on have been disavowed--for that purpose--by the agency that generated them, and a more reliable study shows that USC still has the edge in wealth. What's interesting, though, is how such assertions underscore the importance of image in college marketing these days.
USC has mounted an ambitious and largely successful effort over the last decade to bring in students with better academic records and more diverse backgrounds. It has had less success in shaking USC's frat-boy, party-school reputation.
So even an innocent question to a USC administrator can ignite an outburst of institutional touchiness: "I am not going to contribute to anything that reinforces the stereotype of the rich, spoiled Trojans."
The reality beyond the perceptions may horrify die-hard fans from both schools: Trojans and Bruins are starting to look, gulp, more and more alike.
What do you get when you drive your BMW very, very slowly past USC?
A diploma.
How do you get a UCLA grad off your front porch?
Pay him for the pizza and send him on his way.
Most jokes hurled at the cross-town rivals celebrate the perceived differences in wealth or class.
For every UCLA student who jangles keys at the "University of Spoiled Children," there's a USC counterpart who wears a "My maid went to UCLA" T-shirt or who lobs the one-liner: "I used to go to UCLA, then my dad got a job."
In reality, though, the incomes of USC and UCLA students' families have become strikingly similar, according to a national survey of freshmen that canvasses both campuses. The median family income of USC freshmen this year was $72,476. For UCLA freshmen it was $68,230.
