I used this aggregator, last updated November 2024, to find out the percentage of in-state students at a few different flagships. Please note that there can be errors in third-party sources and that verifying information directly from each school’s CDS is best practice. But for my purposes, this was sufficient, and I’ve listed the schools from lowest in-state percentage to highest:
- UVA: 68%
- UIUC: 72%
- UNL: 76%
- UCLA: 79%
- UNC: 85% (no NC public can be less than 82%)
- UC Berkeley: 85%
The percentage of in-state students at UNL is not far from that of UIUC, and is well below some other schools that are highly coveted by out-of-state students.
I can’t speak to the level of insularity at UNL. I can, however, speak to my own experience attending a midwestern flagship which, at the time, was either 73% in-state or 67%. I was from out-of-state, and 5 of the 6 of my closest friends were from in-state. These friends did not know each other prior to arriving at the flagship (outside of attending a weekend competition for an elite college scholarship). Five of us attended grad school out-of-state (all at Top X programs). Four of us still live out-of-state, with three of us living in highly populous coastal metro areas. For friends that were further on the periphery, the same type of story holds true.
The majority of my friends were part of an elite cohort (5 of the 6 attended the scholarship weekend with 4 receiving the scholarship), but Raikes is also a pretty elite cohort (35-40 students/year). I think it would behoove OP to ask to speak to current Raikes students to see what their experience has been like in terms of making friends with like-minded students (whether they are Nebraska residents or not).
@Matthew_Zhou, if your username is a reflection of your real name, I would urge you to change it: