This is true where we are as well but it seems to be more within the “not quite” top kids and top kids that took their shot and didn’t get into whatever Ivy or made a risk calculation and thought they’d have a better shot at a Duke or Vanderbilt.
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I particularly love this comment, and that the relative affordability of Southern flagships makes this possible for many students. College is four years of LIFE. I think finding a good fit and a place where the student can thrive academically, socially, physically, spiritually, etc. is so important. And I’m pretty sure my S24 is happier than he has ever been at his big flagship.
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DD25 is in a competitive suburban high school in the Southeast. Most of the top kids are applying to the honors programs of the state flagships and their reaches are Duke, Vandy, or Rice. Little if any interest in the Ivies or SLACs in the NE. Interesting, because this wasn’t the case even 4-5 years ago.
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I didn’t read the article but at neither of my kids northeast HSs are more than a couple of kids going to southern public schools 
In fact, most people (including the kids!) I know are ruling out many schools base on laws and nearly all are SO turned off by all the sorority tiktok stuff.
Edited by moderator to comply with ToS.
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With admissions so out of reach for even tippy top kids at top tier schools, it makes a lot of sense that when you are almost inevitably rejected from your dream school, why not consider price as an important part of the decision. Many parents would rather pay $20k for an OOS flagship state school where there are many majors and lots of research opportunities and diversity, than a $60k second or third choice school.
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The first category in your table is a bit inaccurate.
For instance, there seem to be some students with High credentials and Ordinary-High Available money but are still choosing schools like UT Dallas because of the full ride NMF scholarship or another school for some other scholarship. Some of these students would have gone to a school like Stanford full pay if they had gotten in but will take the scholarship school over most others. Others decide that the full ride is their goal and don’t even bother applying to schools that don’t offer something that can beat the price so might get into a Stanford but don’t even try. I think there are about 200 NMF’s every year going to UT Dallas and a similar amount going to Texas A&M also a large number going to UT Tulsa and some go to Oklahoma, Alabama and Florida. Given the correlation with income and SAT score coupled with the correlation with GPA and SAT score, it’s unlikely all of these students are from lower income families and/or they didn’t have stellar GPA’s accompanying their test scores. It seems some number of them are choosing these schools over higher ranked schools. There was even a thread on CC about a student who chose South Carolina over other options like JHU and Princeton, the latter being possibly financially out of reach while JHU was an affordable stretch. Merit hunters can come from a wide variety of financial backgrounds up to and including upper-middle class (possibly wealthy though that would be much more unlikely).
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I’m seeing high-income families that have the opinion that if their kid isn’t going to an Ivy, they would rather them go to a Southern school “for free” than pay 90K for a New England SLAC that doesn’t give merit. They want something to show for their kid’s hard work. I’m not going to get into any discussion about merit vs. meets financial need, but they feel like their kid worked hard and want something to show for it (or rather brag about, rather than admission to a “non-Ivy” that won’t have the name recognition outside of academic circles). When that aligns with a kid that wants big sports, a Greek system, good weather or less pressure, it’s a win/win for an application to on of the big merit for NMF schools. I’m not sure if the timing was TikTok and more people knowing about these opportunities or when COA topped 70k. I think even families that have the money put a lot of thought into the difference between <35k and 90K.
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Interesting. So it looks like the big losers from this trend are SLACs
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This thread has been a generally interesting discussion on the recent popularity of Southern Schools among “typical” kids from the Northeast (and the West) looking for a lifestyle college experience. The schools provide a solid option for many families.
But, nobody at Harvard, the Ivy League in general, or the NESCAC LACs are losing any sleep over the theme outlined in the article because most kids with real chances of attending those schools mostly aren’t choosing to go south except for those schools like Rice, Duke, and Vandy who have always been part of the conversation. A few families will do it because of finances but nobody at those schools really cares because applicants are stacked up like cordwood out back.
The SLACs, completely different product, for a different type of consumer.
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Agreed - but there are definitely kids going to UF, UGA, Bama, and more that are Ivy potential caliber - and even my kid’s school - C of C.
A huge amount - maybe not - but definitely some.
But these top schools still have some 8% acceptance rates (some half). It just goes to show that with grade inflation rampant, there are more top kids than should exist. Everyone today gets a participation trophy.
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While these schools are not losing sleep, there are some very strong students who are scoffing at the steep prices. They will pay $80k for a Stanford or another top school - and when I say top think along the lines of a T10 or thereabouts though not necessarily based on any ranking - but even a step down and they’ll take an in-state or even a top flight out of state that isn’t Berkeley, Michigan or the others that are charging almost the equivalent of private school prices. Even on this thread we’ve seen some posters weigh in with exactly this kind of thinking. For instance, one scoffed at the cost of Michigan with her daughter choosing Georgia Tech (and I expect many would make that same choice given the cost difference) while another has said that his children chose southern schools, Bama and Charleston, over more highly ranked but much more costly alternatives. The prices for many of these schools are astronomical. One could perhaps have justified $60k once upon a time but at $80k - many believe only perhaps a handful of schools (and some think none) are worth those prices.
This doesn’t affect the very well off. We are talking about those who are full pay but still finding it a stretch to make those payments.
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More and more of the southern publics are learning the formula to attract top students via their honors programs. tsbna has spoken many times about the honors opportunities that their kids have had at Alabama & CofC (I hope I got the colleges correct).
Some kids are attracted to unique honors college opportunities that may involve such perks as summer study abroad trips, unique research opportunities and internships, hob-knobbing with university board members, nicer living accommodations, etc. - in addition to hefty merit offers. They’d rather be in a smaller group of students who are celebrated and rewarded for their outstanding academic accomplishments, than be part of the herd at an Ivy/Rice/Vandy/Duke.
It’s true, Ivies will likely never have a shortage of applicants - but I do think the trend is shifting, as a poster above put it - to a choice for more of a lifestyle education. Many want to work hard AND have fun, and I think they are realizing that becoming successful in life is ultimately in their hands - even with a degree from an Ivy, it’s not guaranteed.
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I was searching a school and this thread came up. Thought this was interesting to add, my child got a full-ride to UofSC with a generous fund on top. I forget how many, less than 20 from out of state. I was shocked to learn this fall that another kid at the merit weekend ended up at same Ivy as my child, small world. To be a top scholar they have to be top 1% of high school which was interesting as ours doesn’t rank and is very high achieving school, not sure how that worked. At the merit weekend there were others in running for some other very big name scholarships too, so I think more crossover than some might imagine also, chasing top schools and big merit simultaneously, especially pre-med, pre-law, grad school kids.
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So I more or less randomly choose Connecticut College to test the SLAC hypothesis (although I didn’t want to choose like an Amherst just in case that was seen as too exceptional).
The oldest CDS they had on their website was 2016-17, and in that cycle they got 5879 applications. In 2023-24, they got 9367.
So it doesn’t look like there has been a mass net outflux of demand from Connecticut College.
Of course this doesn’t mean there are no applicants who are cost-sensitive. It just doesn’t appear this has led to a trend of fewer people being interested in SLACs like Connecticut College.
I will again note we do know there are certain sorts of colleges that have fewer applications these days, namely more regional/local publics.
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This is a good example that shows the pressure colleges are under to get fannies in the seats. Even though app numbers have increased, Conn College’s discount rate has significantly increased in this time frame. In 2016-17 they didn’t even offer merit aid…now they do and it’s a lot ($0 in '16-17 to $30.8M in '23-'24). Those numbers are for the all matriculants, not just the incoming class.
Need based aid also increased during this time period. Total institutional aid (section H CDS) has increased from $35M in 2016-17 to $72M in 23-24. Yield also went from 23% in 16-17 to 15% in 23-24…so an increasing discount rate, lots more institutional aid and…yield has still dropped. Class size did increase from 475 to 555 in this period, so that has to be factored in the aid increase.
Increasing discount rates and declining yields are happening at many four year colleges of course (average discount rate was 56.1% in '23-24, average yield 30.2% in 2022-23).
My point is that even though a given school might be seeing an increase in apps/decrease in acceptance rate, many have to increase financial aid to fill their classes. Some colleges do other things to prop up applications as well, for example, $0 app fee and no supplemental essays.
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Is the admission rate similar to what it was in 16-17?
But they had to try a lot harder to get students to enroll: last year they admitted 3597 students to get a class of 555, whereas in 2016-17 they admitted 2065 to get a class of 472.
The admit rate actually went up from 35% to 38% over that period.
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I was too lazy to check but was expecting something like that 
The increased number of applicants masks the actual picture. Taking Auburn as an example - the admission rate went from 71% to 46% in just the last three years and their test results threshold for merit aid is moving up. Someone has to be on the losing side of this trend.
Yes, this is similar to what we found for Pitt. I think on the one hand, these colleges are attracting more applications from a broader field. On the other, that is a more competitive field so their yields are going down.
In the end, though, the WSJ article was about enrollments, and these colleges are not having trouble enrolling students.
But there ARE colleges struggling to enroll students. Just not these.
Indeed, and we know that the big “losers” are more local/regional colleges.
Since we were just looking at Connecticut, here is a report:
https://cga.ct.gov/2024/rpt/pdf/2024-R-0081.pdf
As the top of the summary states:
In 2018, total enrollment between two- and four-year Connecticut public colleges was 112,861, compared to 89,932 in 2023 (a 20.3% decrease).
But then they break that down:
Total enrollment for the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU), including community colleges, was 82,275 in 2018 and fell to 63,405 in 2023 (a 22.4% decrease). As shown in Table 1, below, Western Connecticut State University (“Western”) in Danbury had the greatest decrease (26.7%), and Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven had the least (12.2%).
In contrast, enrollment at the University of Connecticut (UConn)-Storrs and across all UConn campuses rose during this timeframe. UConn’s total enrollment was 31,646 in 2018, which rose to 32,332 in 2023 (a 2.2% increase). At Storrs, total enrollment was 18,768 in 2018 and rose to 19,067 in 2023 (a 1.6% increase).
I actually hadn’t looked that up before I began drafting this post, but I knew it was a very good bet it would be the same pattern as in PA, and many other states.
OK, so the “losers” in states like CT in recent years in terms of enrollment are generally not “national” private universities like Yale, nor “national” SLACs like Connecticut College, nor “flagship” publics like UConn. They are the regional/local publics. Just like in PA, and I suspect most if not all of the Northeast-region states.
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Do the stats distinguish between full time and part time students? I know a lot of kids who find the U Conn regional campuses (Stamford, for example) especially attractive because Stamford is still a business/corporate hub-- so it’s an easy-peasy way to work full time and take two classes per semester without taking a huge toll on your lifestyle (commuting, etc.) Harder to do at Western (to pick on one CS campus) since the region it’s located in has fewer overall employment opportunities-- and worse public transportation options.
And if your company is paying for your tuition-- even though it may take a long time to earn that degree— it’s especially attractive.
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