SCHOOL SPIRIT

Students Are Ditching Ivy League Dreams for Southern Colleges

Applications to attend the University of Alabama saw a more than 600 percent increase in the past two decades, three times the number of bids received by Harvard University.

High school seniors in the North are crossing the Mason-Dixon line en masse for college, The Wall Street Journal reported. The number of North-Easterners attending universities in the South increased 84 percent in the past 20 years, rising 30 percent from 2018 to 2022. While college applicants from the North have long hoped to attend notable private Southern academic institutions like Duke, Tulane, Emory, and Vanderbilt, recent soaring interest in studying down South is driven by the region’s public universities. Applications to attend the University of Alabama saw a more than 600 percent increase in the past two decades, three times the number of bids received by Harvard University. Students credited fun campus life and lively school spirit, as seen on social media, for their southern migration. Whereas parents credited cheaper tuition, less debt, and better weather. According to college counselors, student interest in Southern schools comes as many teens want to shift away from on-campus political polarization at Northeastern university towards “the sense of community epitomized by the South’s football Saturdays.”