Living and working in Auburn, I can tell you this trend is really. It should worry TPTB at Penn State....especially those running the branch campuses. Highly recommend reading the whole article, I just posted a couple of excerpts.
www.wsj.com /us-news/education/sorry-harvard-everyone-wants-to-go-to-college-in-the-south-now-235d7934
A growing number of high-school seniors in the North are making an unexpected choice for college: They are heading to Clemson, Georgia Tech, South Carolina, Alabama and other universities in the South. Students say they are searching for the fun and school spirit emanating from the South on their social-media feeds. Their parents cite lower tuition and less debt, and warmer weather. College counselors also say many teens are eager to trade the political polarization ripping apart campuses in New England and New York for the sense of community epitomized by the South’s football Saturdays. Promising job prospects after graduation can sweeten the pot.
The number of Northerners going to Southern public schools went up 84% over the past two decades, and jumped 30% from 2018 to 2022, a Wall Street Journal analysis of the latest available Education Department data found.
Mitch Savalli drove 15 hours with his parents in a rented white Lincoln Navigator from his home in North Bellmore, N.Y., on Long Island, to Atlanta for his freshman year at Georgia Tech. A few weeks later he was walking from the grocery store to his dorm with a bouquet of flowers for the woman he was taking to a fraternity event when the reality of his new surroundings dawned on him.
“Five people stopped me and told me how kind it was and what a sweet gesture I was making,” he said. “No way would that have happened in New York.”
At the University of South Carolina in Columbia, Alicia Caracciolo, a junior, said it takes her about two weeks to acclimate to the pace of the South every time she returns from her home in New York. At the grocery store she reminds herself to pause and slow down. “If you go and you don’t end up learning something about the cashier, you did it wrong,” she said.
www.wsj.com /us-news/education/sorry-harvard-everyone-wants-to-go-to-college-in-the-south-now-235d7934
A growing number of high-school seniors in the North are making an unexpected choice for college: They are heading to Clemson, Georgia Tech, South Carolina, Alabama and other universities in the South. Students say they are searching for the fun and school spirit emanating from the South on their social-media feeds. Their parents cite lower tuition and less debt, and warmer weather. College counselors also say many teens are eager to trade the political polarization ripping apart campuses in New England and New York for the sense of community epitomized by the South’s football Saturdays. Promising job prospects after graduation can sweeten the pot.
The number of Northerners going to Southern public schools went up 84% over the past two decades, and jumped 30% from 2018 to 2022, a Wall Street Journal analysis of the latest available Education Department data found.
Mitch Savalli drove 15 hours with his parents in a rented white Lincoln Navigator from his home in North Bellmore, N.Y., on Long Island, to Atlanta for his freshman year at Georgia Tech. A few weeks later he was walking from the grocery store to his dorm with a bouquet of flowers for the woman he was taking to a fraternity event when the reality of his new surroundings dawned on him.
“Five people stopped me and told me how kind it was and what a sweet gesture I was making,” he said. “No way would that have happened in New York.”
At the University of South Carolina in Columbia, Alicia Caracciolo, a junior, said it takes her about two weeks to acclimate to the pace of the South every time she returns from her home in New York. At the grocery store she reminds herself to pause and slow down. “If you go and you don’t end up learning something about the cashier, you did it wrong,” she said.
