fresh Alabama stickers on cars as fresh Illinois stickers

20-30 years ago, the only schools that would draw kids from outside the Southeast were the private schools with prestige (Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory), or a couple of well-regarded state schools (UVA, UNC). Now, there are an increasing number of formerly strictly state/regional schools with rapidly growing national student bodies. Schools like Wake Forest, U of Florida, Georgia Tech, UGA, Clemson, etc. are all rapidly climbing national rankings and drawing an increasingly competitive student body. I think that trend will continue to accelerate.

state kids with scholarships, tuition waivers, etc. Both schools are around 85% in-state kids, compared to Alabama which is now less than 40% in-state kids. Population growth in their respective states combined with a bit of interest from surrounding states has made UF and UGA (and FSU too) very hard to get into. They don't need kids from the Midwest or Northeast.

Alabama is importing students. Florida and Georgia have been importing citizens.

state students to raise the academic profile of their university through student selectivity. They are throwing instate tuition, at least, at kids from the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic and they're using football to get their attention.

Sounds similar to what a small, Catholic school in Indiana once did.

if you are an A student with a decent ACT. All three of my kids have been recruited heavily by Alabama to go to their honors program, etc.

Fortunately, my kids were raised to hate Alabama (the entire SEC and ACC) and had other options. Unfortunately, I failed to get them to hate the ACC well enough (one graduated from Clemson, another is at FSU now, and a third just got rejected by ND -- so she likely is off to Pitt, Ga Tech or UNC for pre-med).

is no longer attracting qualified applicants ?

It's flattering that they would copy the plan to use football to upgrade our academic standing. It worked out well for us.

fallback school in 1998, I wouldn’t get in today.

since 2010. They are using football to increase admissions from HS students in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, both of which have much better academic profiles than HS students from Alabama. More importantly, while the cream of the out of state crop will pay no more than instate tuition, the average out of state student a) has a better academic profile than the average Alabama HS student and b) they'll pay higher tuition, which will continue to fund the growth of the university.

Tennessee and South Carolina are attempting the same, although without the tailwind of football. Clemson is to a lesser extent, not throwing as much tuition remission at out of state students as the other two, and not as much as they used to do. Clemson improved their academic rep before the football went wild and now, with football as a tailwind, they don't need to throw as much tuition remission anymore at out of staters. I suspect Alabama will start reeling it in soon as well.

as a student, but you're right that they're not using a football tailwind. She went because she got a good scholarship offer. It was there or Binghamton for the same price. She chose the adventure.

She did not know anything about their football team when she set foot on campus, though. She didn't know what a Clemson was!

Expensive to educate the kids of the Midwest and Atlanta if they just return there after graduation.

certain none of them are staying. Alabama does not have cities that attract many people to move there -- especially young, single ones.

They want the school as a whole to be higher ranked -- for whatever that is worth. Giving away free spots to 200-500 kids per year from out of state that have ACT scores in the 30's and GPAs in the 94% or above range doesn't really cost them anything significant. They give room and board away. The spot in a classroom is a sunk cost with or without them there.

Someone did the calculus and deemed getting the school into the US News top 50 rankings has enough ROI. They aren't there yet -- partly because the other schools in the region are doing the exact same thing and are winning most of the battles for these students.

all mean you go to college there for free. They recruit the hell out of the top high schools in north Atlanta -- where my kids all went (one graduating this year).

For my oldest, she went to Clemson and got 7k per year -- but was not honors (she wrongly didn't apply for it -- or she would have gone for free). She was offered honors at Alabama and South Carolina (free).

My second daughter wasn't as elite a student, but still was offered in state at Alabama and over 50% at South Carolina. She went to Florida State -- I am a FL resident, so in state there is nearly free.

My youngest is graduating this year. Alabama sent her a letter guaranteeing she would go there for free if she'd apply. LSU (free). FSU (free). SC (Free). She did not apply to Clemson. She's not going to any of them -- they all were safety schools for her, but Alabama is pulling a pile here simply because it is free to go there and UGA can't take enough GA students --- its free to go to college in Georgia if you are a B student or above, so nearly impossible for all of them to get into UGA.

FYI -- St. Mary's isn't what it used to be either. They now have engineering and other majors jointly with ND (where you overtly take your final 3 years entirely at ND -- but graduate from St. Marys). They offered daughter two 25k per year (partly to play tennis) and daughter three just got offered 28k per year to go there.

Everybody. My son was just admitted to SC Honors. All I know so far from his admit letter is he will pay no more than instate tuition. More details coming in March. 34 ACT, 95% grade average from a top Catholic HS in Ohio.

Surprised to hear you already know your senior can go for free. That’s impressive!

that their honors program is very good. I know quite a few people over the years that opted to take the free SC deal versus paying to go to Duke, etc. I was shocked anyone would do that, but as I have reached the time where I am paying to send my kids to college I realize that free honors at SC or 65k at Duke perhaps isn't as hard a choice as I thought.

My daughter just got rejected by ND (my last one -- so 0 for 3). I wanted her to get in, but I more than once was struggling with the reality that she can go to for 6k per year to Florida (#30 per US News), free to Ga Tech (around 30th), free to Temple (actually they also give her 4k spending money), free to SC, about 60% off to St. Marys, Pitt at about half price of ND -- or go to ND for 80k per year. ND solved that by rejecting her unfortunately.

Lure the payers from Illinois, etc. by having them follow their peers (non-payers) from Illinois, etc.

I was shocked how well it has worked for a lot of colleges in the region. Go look at US News college rankings. You likely will be shocked to see Florida ranked #30 (ND #19). I was very surprised Clemson was in the 50's and Florida State has climbed about 75 spots in 5 years.

They are all very overtly throwing money at the kids scoring 30+ on ACT and A students as a means to get them to go and to increase their rankings. The honors programs at these schools offer living perks, free ride, etc.

As good as they are at football, they know that they are still just a large state school, with regional appeal. To enhance the image of the University, they know they need to have students, and thus alums, beyond the southeast. It's not a bad idea. I have a friend from high school, lives in Chicago, Jewish with no connection to the South whose daughter went to Alabama because of the offered scholarship. Now my friend,a dentist in the Mid-West posts a bunch of Alabama stuff on social media.

universities and a population of only 4.9 million. A lot of other state universities in low population states, e.g., KU, KSU, Nebraska, have tuition reciprocity with surrounding states to attract students. I know Arkansas is pretty generous with tuition waivers to out of state kids. It sounds like Alabama is just implementing a more ambitious version of the same thing. Good for them.