Universities in the American South are becoming models for fixing higher education.

After the COVID lockdowns and amid antisemitic violence and the anti-American and DEI-infused agendas that have taken hold over the past two decades, Southern colleges are now displacing the broken universities in the Northeast that were once benchmarks for elite education.  

The number of Northeastern high-school students going to Southern colleges has nearly doubled in the last 20 years, thanks largely to lower costs and less-ideologically driven campus cultures.

College-admissions experts note that the rise in these schools’ popularity has allowed them to become more selective, boosting their prestige even further among high-school students.

From 2014 to 2024, the last full year for available admissions data, Auburn University’s freshman-class acceptance rate decreased from 85% to 46%; Clemson University’s dropped from 52% to 38%.

The trend line holds even for the South’s most selective colleges: Rice University’s acceptance rate dipped from 14% to 8%; Emory University’s, from 26% to 15%. 

By contrast, elite Northeastern universities have only been able to maintain their enrollments by taking in more foreign students.

Why are young people are flocking to Southern universities?

Because, on the whole, they’re run better.

They take a pragmatic approach to education that’s attractive to students who want to learn without the far-left craziness that prevails at so many schools. 

As an adjunct professor at the University of Kentucky, I’m immersed in a common-sense-oriented culture that’s absent at elite Northeastern schools, one that lets administrators run the institution more sensibly based on what works best and not the optics of a vocal minority’s radical ideology. 

This summer, the University of Kentucky swiftly fired a professor who launched an online petition calling for international warfare against Jews.

About the same time, Columbia University was agreeing to a $221 million settlement with the Trump administration over its multi-year failures to police protesters who caused millions of dollars in damage and harassed peers in the name of far-left ideology pushed by their professors.

The contrast could not be starker.

Common-sense governance in higher education inspires leaders to be pragmatic and take action to keep students safe and the campus running normally.  

Pragmatism translates into rational decision-making and logical solutions across all areas of university life.

The Universities of Florida and North Carolina systems, for example, have among the strongest track records of enforcing DEI bans and fortifying campus safety against wanton protesters.

These policies transcend collegiate bureaucracies and change campus cultures for the better. 

At the University of North Carolina, students shut down their peers’ anti-American protest by raising the American flag in front of them.

At the University of Florida, Jewish students felt reassured after Oct. 7 because then-President Ben Sasse immediately issued a zero-tolerance statement for campus antisemitism.

Southern universities’ resolve to defy far-left craziness resonates with prospective college students because the results give young people positive visions of what they can experience on campus, achieve as students and accomplish after graduation.

When learning devolves into activism, education loses its purpose as a tool for practical future success. Seminar discussions and quad gatherings simply won’t translate into good jobs after graduation.

Students fleeing the Northeast are reacting to that disconnect between college as a stagnant, unserious experience versus a real vehicle for future success. 

Southern universities are more disposed to traditional approaches to education, which prioritizes civics education and reinforces the campus as a place for cultivating intellectual and spiritual growth.

Public institutions like the University of South Carolina and North Carolina State University have recently invested millions on civic-engagement curriculum.

Texas, Florida and Tennessee have also allocated millions to beef up civics and classical education at their state universities. 

And Southern schools are more willing to welcome students of faith — a draw for some.

The 2023 Christian revival at Asbury University in Kentucky was an expression of students’ attraction to traditional education.

The 16-day prayer celebration numbered 20,000 participants and inspired thousands more at Baylor, Texas A&M and Auburn to hold similar events that year.

Students said their search for truth, connection and self-discovery in a society dominated by hyper-politicization motivated them to attend such events. 

Northeastern colleges thought pursuing radical change through social-justice activism would keep them on top — but that course has only precipitated their decline in reputation and relevance. 

They could learn much from the South.

Zachary Marschall is editor-in-chief of Leadership Institute’s Campus Reform and an adjunct assistant professor of arts administration at the University of Kentucky.