While there has been a southern migration overall, and while some college students are chasing low cost options, many others are showing a preference for states with better reproductive rights policies State Reproductive Policies Important to Enrollment Decisions
Story Highlights
71% say state reproductive healthcare policies impact college choice
80% of all current/prospective students prefer states with greater access
86% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans prefer states with greater access
All of it, really. Iād take political division over uniformity when the uniformity favors politics I abhor (or when uniformity means political indifference ā that would bother me more than division). Iād take authenticity over universal friendliness (I grew up someplace that is seen as universally friendly, but to me it seems fake). I like people with a bit of an edge. I like cold weather. I donāt mind darkness. Sample of one, but this is just to say that there is no universally desirable trait that any region of the country can claim.
Does āless polarizedā mean majority vs minority of a particular party affiliation?? Just an observationā¦ since I live in the south and its still pretty āpolarizedā, just a different āleaningā than some other places
My daughter loved her 4 years in SC, the way one would love visiting an area on vacation, but could never see herself staying. Sheās very tolerant of other views, but is also pretty hard set on her own, and took a bit of ribbing during the last presidential election. She really missed the food at home, and felt the absence of (openly) young gay men a little unnerving.
They didnāt get granular enough on type of immigration. I agree that refugees are beholden to those willing to support them. Family immigration (which accounts for 2/3 of legal immigration and probably a similar percentage of all) is also going to tie to their familyās region. States with a high percentage of immigrants are going to continue to attract a higher growth rate.
I live in the northeast, not far from a major metropolitan area. I work with college bound high schoolers. Since 2020, more kids are applying to southern unis, but Iām not seeing quite as much interest this year as I saw in ā23 and ā24.
I think apps to most places on peopleās radar are exploding. California apps are through the roof. Boston area colleges are too.
The Ivy League is as popular as ever. Kids from the south are never going to stop applying to those, and neither are kids from the north or southwest or Midwest or pacnw.
I do think that affordable colleges are going to become more popular. And kids are still applying to insane numbers of colleges.
I find polarization and friendliness extremely dependent on how one appears to align with the majority opinion in the south. I also know many who find the state policies at odds with their health and wellbeing, sunshine and weather aside.
I think itās important to remember that application trends donāt really tell you anything about whether kids are moving south or not. In order to learn that, youād have to look at yield data.
Well, apparently not as open as gay men here, from high school, or guys sheās meant since college. My other kids went to northeast universities and had many openly gay friends. My daughter only met one guy at Clemson (and sheās extremely crazy social). I do believe there are as many gay people in the south, but maybe itās not as obvious.
Clemson is not a particularly liberal university in the South. South Carolina is much more red than North Carolina for example. Plenty of LGBTQ folks at UNC. I think she might have found more in Atlanta too. As a North Carolinian, I found Greenville SC (the ābigā city 30 miles from Clemson) very unprogressive and really did not like it. I would not be surprised to feel the same way about Clemson, but it was never on my kidsā radar. We just stopped in Greenville on the way to Atlanta for a college visit there.
