[NTD News, Beijing time, September 29, 2024]In recent years, there has been an eye-catching trend in American higher education: more and more northern high school graduates choose to study in public universities in the south. This shift is driven by a variety of factors, including affordability, campus culture and employment prospects. Not only will this reshape the demographics of Southern universities, it could also change the social and economic landscape of the region.
According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Department of Education data, the number of northern students attending public universities in the South has surged 84% over the past two decades, with a 30% increase between 2018 and 2022 alone. This trend is evident at many universities, such as the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, which had about 50 freshmen from the Northeast in 2002 and nearly 600 of the roughly 6,800 freshmen in 2022. name.
The number of freshmen from the Northeast region at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi, has grown from just 11 in 2002 to more than 200 among about 4,500 freshmen in 2022. The shift at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa is even more dramatic, with 11 percent of students now coming from the Northeast, up from less than 1 percent two decades ago.
Academic centers in the South such as Duke, Tulane, Vanderbilt, etc. have long attracted many northern students, but the recent increase in the number of southern universities is mainly due to the enrollment rate of public universities. rise.
What drives these students south? Students cited a variety of reasons: a vibrant social scene and school spirit observed on social media, lower tuition and warm weather; parents welcomed the possibility of reducing student debt. College counselors note that many teenagers are drawn to the community cohesion presented by Southern teams at Saturday football games.
Savali, who is from New York state, chose Georgia Tech over well-known northern institutions such as MIT and Tufts University. This choice was influenced by factors such as cost and campus culture.
Savary talked about one time when he brought flowers to give to the female companions attending a sorority party. “On the way from the store to the dormitory, five people stopped and told me that it was very kind and warm.” He pointed out that this and his The contrast back home is stark.
Financial factors are an important consideration for many people. Southern public universities often offer considerable discounts to out-of-state students compared to northern institutions. Last academic year, the South’s top public universities charged out-of-state students a median of $29,000 in tuition and fees, the lowest of any region’s top public universities.
According to statistics, in the school district where Savali’s hometown of Long Island, New York is located, the number of people applying to Southern University has tripled from before the epidemic. Caracciolo, a junior at the University of South Carolina, also from New York state, found that the actual cost of attending South Carolina on scholarship was half of what she had spent at Syracuse University.
The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have accelerated this trend. Rick Clark, Georgia Tech’s executive director of student hospitality, observed: “Students in Connecticut are sitting in their basements at home looking at their phones and finding that much of the Northeast is closed and not much is going on. Meanwhile, they “Seeing the fraternity events at Alabama and the football games at Georgia and Florida.”
In addition to social and financial considerations, employment prospects also come into play. A recent study by human resources management firm ADP found that the top five places where college graduates find jobs are all in the South. This economic potential, coupled with the tendency of approximately two-thirds of college graduates to work in the state in which they graduated, suggests that this influx of northern students could have long-lasting consequences for the South’s economy and labor market.
However, this surge in enrollment is not without challenges. The report mentioned that Southern University is working hard to expand infrastructure and services to meet the needs of the growing student population.
(Comprehensive reporting by reporter Yang Caihua/Editor in charge: Lin Qing)
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