re: Why does University of Alabama have so many out of state students?

quote:

---

Bama gave them more money than Arkansas did, fact.

---

Good for Bama and good for those students. There are many different reasons for the students going here. The 11-20% students from these other surrounding big states, for example. But several UA programs are highly ranked - communications, fashion design, law, etc.

The administration has made a concerted push to recruit OOSSs, too. They pay the cost of attendance at a time when the legislature requires the university to give ISSs a discount, but fails to provide financial compensation for that discount.

Word of mouth is a huge factor, too. Current UA students and alums love the school and talk positively of their experience here. A college intern program manager from a major employer in Florida told my wife that they have the interns complete surveys at the conclusion of the program. One of the factors they are surveyed about is their opinion of their own university. She said that, hands down, for the past decade, UA students have given positive ratings of their school that far out pace any other school they get students from. So much so, in fact, that when her own daughter was looking for a school, she insisted that she at least look at UA. When they got to campus, she said she looked at her husband and said, "oh, shite, we're going to be paying out-of-state tuition" because the place made that big of an impact on them from the minute they stepped foot on campus.

That's just one story. Everyone's experience is different. There's no denying that athletics is a MAJOR factor. Good. That's part of the reason to have a team.

Perhaps the real question here is why the states losing students to UA aren't working harder to stop losing. Part of what drove UA to get more aggressive in student recruitment was the fact that we were losing a certain strata of students to schools like Ole Miss and Vanderbilt.

The end result is something of a "snowball" effect. More students means more money, which the university has used to lure faculty/staff and give raises - at a time when other schools are laying them off. That leads to increased dissatisfaction at the other schools - long lines, crowded classes, etc. - and gives UA a competitive edge.