Anonymous wrote:Look at percentage of white students in the incoming classes at these schools:

UPenn 35%
Northwestern 33%
Yale 31%
Stanford 22%
John’s Hopkins 17%

VS

Some state flagships

Illinois 37%
UMich 49%
UVA 52%
Wisconsin 57%
Ohio State 62%

Anonymous wrote:Look at percentage of white students in the incoming classes at these schools:

UPenn 35%
Northwestern 33%
Yale 31%
Stanford 22%
John’s Hopkins 17%

VS

Some state flagships

Illinois 37%
UMich 49%
UVA 52%
Wisconsin 57%
Ohio State 62%

It's the same in travel sports. They carry multiple teams in an age group to offset the ones that are on scholarship.

Anonymous wrote:[b]Schools need the money to afford the non-full pay students, OP. Some colleges say so straight out, when soliciting donations from alum. [b]

Schools are not supposed to "trade applicants" (there was a huge case not that long ago, that I have to look up), but I am certain that it still happens, and likely more often than the parents will ever know.

Anonymous wrote:The reason they want oos students is the cost difference. Full pay oos subsidizes lower in state tuition. The solution would be for the state to increase funding to its public universities, via higher taxes, so that the oos student subsidy isn’t needed. Very unlikely to happen in current political climate.

The reason they want oos students is the cost difference. Full pay oos subsidizes lower in state tuition. The solution would be for the state to increase funding to its public universities, via higher taxes, so that the oos student subsidy isn’t needed. Very unlikely to happen in current political climate.

Anonymous wrote:Schools need the money to afford the non-full pay students, OP. Some colleges say so straight out, when soliciting donations from alum.

Anonymous wrote:This is a result of the woke schools with large endowments filling their classes with URMs, so state schools are targeting those that have been displaced from their usual destinations, who just happen to be predominantly white UMC candidates.

Anonymous wrote:This is a result of the woke schools with large endowments filling their classes with URMs, so state schools are targeting those that have been displaced from their usual destinations, who just happen to be predominantly white UMC candidates.

So #1, state flagships have poured tons of money into developing pipelines from affluent out-of-state high schools. They want feeder schools so that it’s normal for kids from say Long Island to apply to OSU, Wisconsin, Bama, Vermont, etc. Sometimes recruiters will make 2-3 visits a year to a private high school in another state to build the relationship. Another move is joining Common App (and requiring no supplemental essays) to make it easy to apply. Of course you have to spend money to make money. Schools will give out “merit” scholarships that lower the cost of nonresident tuition substantially. So until the feeder pipeline is established, nonresidents won’t be paying as much, kind of like how Lyft and Uber initially deflated their prices so people would get addicted. In turn, many Black, Brown, and low-income students who could have benefited from the resources of the state flagship (including the big alumni networks) get routed to regional state campuses, which can be great but are historically under-resourced.

#2 — in some ways, the rise of crossing state lines to attend another big state university is a weird amalgamation of rising economic inequality combined with the anxiety of the upper middle-class (UMC). So the rich are getting richer, and I would guess that there is a greater concentration of wealth in certain high schools. So you have more UMC people wanting UMC dreams and adventures for their kids. At the same time, the UMC feels insecure and crunched. $80,000-90,000/year for private college = serious sticker shock. However, out-of-state tuition at OSU is “only” (ha!) 36K which is steep, but more palatable than 60K+ at most privates. State flagships know that families, even relatively affluent ones, are price sensitive.

I’ve heard this story from my undergrads. They had good grades, good test scores, and were accepted at a lot of schools. Still, they didn’t qualify for need-based aid, and rightfully so. UMD was the most affordable place besides their in-state options, especially with a “merit” scholarship thrown in.

A #3 contributing factor is population growth; this dynamic is more prevalent in some states than others. We are basically at the peak of high school graduates, and that’s partially why kids in northern VA who would have gotten into UVA, Virginia Tech, etc. 10-20 years ago can’t bank on getting in. So they have to broaden their search, and other state flagships are out there waiting for them. However, it’s not just population growth. If these schools scaled back seats for nonresidents, they could accommodate more residents. It’s a weird game of musical chairs, for states to basically be swapping each other’s affluent, predominantly White student populations. Of course, they say they can’t because they need to make the money to make up for state budget cuts from 2008, but that’s somewhat debatable.