The son of a founder of technology pushed the Ivy League because his “ unusual, judging and biased against white boys – is one of the many heading south for the university instead

Traina says that a great reason for her son’s decision is to avoid a culture of radical policy and to stifle the politically correct who came to define the campuses of elite schools in the northeast and on the west coast.

“They consider schools to be unfounded, judgstly and biased against white boys,” said Traina, adding that many friends of her son also sought more welcoming schools like Duke, Vanderbilt and Tulane.

They are not alone. Recent data from admissions show an increase in northeast students and other regions that choose schools in the South. Politics is not the only reason of course. But interviews with parents, students and university officials suggest the rise of a new type of college ideal: a campus where belonging, affordability and civility count the most.

Everyone carries orange

Ainsley Matteson says that her college choice meant that her family had become a divided house – or at least it was a Saturday of last year when she abandoned her loyalty to Ohio State and rooted for the University of Tennessee during a critical football match.

“In Knoxville, sports bring together everyone,” said Matteson, a senior student management of the supply chain and the voluntary convert. “If you wear orange on the day of the match, there is this feeling of belonging.”

Cameron McManus, a high school student from the suburbs of Washington, DC, is also attracted by the idea of ​​a school with a strong feeling of community, and has the eye on a Chapel Hill, Clemson or the University of South Carolina. His interest was partly stimulated by Tiktok and Instagram videos which present sports scenes and Greek culture in these schools and by the promise of hot time.

“You can be outside every month of the year,” he said, adding that the older brothers and sisters of friends have reinforced its impression that the schools in the South are a “dynamic” place.

One of these schools attracting more students from outside the region is Vanderbilt University. According to Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, the school has seen an increase in applications in the northeast, the west coast and the bay region in particular.

While the sweet and animated sports scene of the University of Nashville is undoubtedly a draw, Diermeier says that potential students and parents are attracted by Vanderbilt’s commitment to freedom of expression and institutional neutrality on external political issues.

“We have noticed by conversations with parents who, for them, is whether the campus will be a place where their son or their daughter can prosper without ideological homogeneity,” he said.

Diermeier adds that these concerns have become particularly pronounced since October 7, 2023, when the massacre of the Hamas of Israelis approached a regional war, and a wave of pro-Palestine demonstrations on American campuses which produced tent camps and directed schools like Columbia to cancel the graduation ceremonies.

Vanderbilt Chancellor says he adopted a different approach when the demonstrators occupied his office and attacked a security guard, choosing to make discipline and restore order on the campus. Diermeier says that all opinions are welcome to school. “Our students explore the most difficult subjects but can do so in a climate of respect and civility,” he says.

A leap of 50% of applications

Addie Rogers, a person in a public secondary school in Washington, DC, says that he has noticed a growing desire among her peers to go south for schools, and that it is also her aspiration.

“The main thing called me is the school spirit of schools in the South,” she said. “I don’t want to go to university and focus only on the study. I want to have fun. This is what the schools of the South are used for. ”

If Rogers ends up traveling south for school, she will have a lot of company. A recent Wall Street Journal The report revealed that the number of inhabitants of the north going to the South public schools has increased by 84% in the past two decades and has jumped from 30% from 2018 to 2022.

Meanwhile, recent data surveys of the common application (a standard intake process used by an increasing number of colleges) show that applications in southern colleges have increased by 50% since 2019.

Part of this reflects the reality that it is more difficult than ever to enter the most elite colleges. Another important factor in admission to the south is that students apply to a much higher number of schools than in the past.

This recent effort to launch a very wide net is an outgrowth of the era cocodes when many schools have removed the standardized tests from their admission process and have continued even as schools return to their old practices.

According to Krista Jajonie of Access Consulting, this “mentality applying everywhere” has persisted in part because the admission offices are reluctant to say to students – even completely unquestioned – not to apply to their programs, because more requests improve the supposed rate of yield that schools use a key benchmark against the other.

As for the political climate of the campuses, Jajonie says that she hears parents who do not want to send their children to a school like a conflict on Israel and Palestine. But she says, for potential students, the main attraction of southern campuses is weather and sports culture.

Finally, there is the question of cost – a factor which has become a primordial concern for many at a time when certain schools cost more than $ 70,000 per year of tuition fees. When Danielle Davis, from northern Virginia, explored potential universities so that her son attended, the question of the political culture of the campus was hardly in mind.

What concerned her rather is that it would cost nearly $ 37,000 just for her son attending the neighboring Virginia University. Instead, they settled at the University of Florida, a “public ivy” where the total cost was $ 31,000, including the contributions of fraternity. Her son is now specialized in finance and, thanks to relative affordability, the family will have money if he chooses to pursue higher education.