With all the chat about student’s going out of state, I think some numbers may help put it into context.
Residence and migration of all first-time degree/certificate-seeking undergraduates in 4-year degree-granting postsecondary institutions who graduated from high school in the previous 12 months, by state or jurisdiction:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_309.30.asp
For example, a large % of students in the state of Utah are from out of state. Of the 19,318 undergrad students, enrolled in the state (at 4 year colleges), 12,658 are in-state, and 6,660 are OOS. Utah also only exported out 1,406 students, so the net migration was +5,254.
Utah does appeal to OOS students, but it’s not a large/populous state.You may not know of any students going to Utah, but, based on it’s size, it’s getting more than it’s share of OOS students.
Compare it to California. CA has a net minus migration with 36,528 students leaving the state, and 22,632 students going into the state (net of -13,896). The total enrollment in CA (undergraduates attending 4 year institutions) is 152,534 (as compared to Utah’s 19,318).