Yes, @PurpleTitan, that’s why they attract top students. But some of the states just surprised me.
@mommdc: Why surprised? In some cases, the in-state option costs more after scholarships. In others, they cost the same but kids want to move away. In yet others, kids and families are willing to pay more to go OOS. In yet others, they did not get in to the in-state flagship. In others, they find the OOS school compelling for some reason or another.
Rutgers was planning to increase OOS but the state threatened a dollar for dollar loss in state funding or worse. So they backed off. From my part of NY I see lots going to Va Tech now and U Del was always big. More going to southeast that used to go to midwest.
You hit the nail on the head; as I described previously, it is definitely more of the second one. Rutgers and TCNJ are our only definitively “good” state schools, and Rowan is decent, but afterwards is just a beacon of mediocrity. (I know you mentioned NJIT, but it is very average academically, has a notoriously poor social life, and is the most expensive NJ public U). TCNJ and Rutgers are also unreasonably expensive for their own in-state students but at least are good academically.
A tiny bit dated, but a good read: http://www.nj.com/education/2014/07/njit_tcnj_among_costliest_colleges_in_the_nation_according_to_new_government_ranking.html
@barrons UDel is also popular from my HS; 6 of my HS classmates attended, and a whopping 24 from last year’s class joined them this past fall. Thinking that a lot of them would end up leaving at school year’s end lol. Any idea what makes UDel so popular among NJ/NY kids?
@Purple Titan, yes it made sense to me when I saw the sheer number of NJ, IL, NY, PA students.
Because their instate options can be unaffordable or they just want to get away.
But so many FL students going to Ohio, when they have nice weather, affordable in state schools, Bright Futures. These kinds of kids who would get $15,000 merit at OSU would probably get major scholarships in FL as well.
UDel is not far and it has the charm/pretty campus that many NY kids want. Same with PS except now you can add the sports. That’s what makes these schools popular for NY kids whose parents can afford them.
Yet those “beacons of mediocrity” are filled to the max. I’m sorry if you don’t think students at Stockton or Montclair or Rutgers Newark or William Paterson etc are good enough to care about, but the fact is, if those so-called more deserving students you care about came back to NJ, there would not be room for all the students. Good or average, NJ has a lack of seats in comparison to students to fill them. The state is not going to build more; that’s clear. So I’m assuming you’re saying is that fewer students in NJ should go to college, as that is the only way that returning students could get seats. Which I call elitist claptrap. I’ve taught at several of these institutions and my students are college-prepared (something NJ does well)
@mommdc I think that what I have heard is that Illinois suffers from 2 problems: 1) There are not enough seats at UIUC to fill the demand (and it is gotten very hard to get into) and there is no strong #2 state school (a la’ Mich State, Pitt, W&M, etc) and 2) Chicago and its northern and western suburbs have become much more affluent over the past 20 years and as a result all the kids are looking at either Ivies or the top midwest privates (NU, UC, ND, WUSTL and further south to Vandy) in addition to the usual midwest state flagships. I heard anecdotally from a relative that her local (top DuPage county) high school graduating class is now 75% going out of state whereas 15 years ago is was only around 20%.
@londondad, that makes sense, although I don’t see Pitt as #2 
^ it’s just an example, I could have used FL State or TX A&M. However, Penn St is the flagship U and is typically more highly rated.
^@londondad I know, I’m just biased, hence the winky face…
Okay, got it! 
“UVM was started as a private university. Today, it calls itself a “quasi-public university.” It is the smallest land grant research university with a medical school. If my memory serves me correct, it is an odd and interesting school in the sense that it is the only D1 school without a football team.”
There are a lot of D1 schools that don’t have football, even some like U of Denver that win national championships in other sports (lacrosse, hockey, skiing). Many non-football schools are quite a bit bigger than UVM too, like UC-Irvine, UC-Santa Barbara, U of Wis-Milwaukee.
It’s not the popularity of UVM that surprises me because it is really a very nice setting, but the fact that people are willing to pay a $40k tuition price tag, plus high transportation costs, high room and board, etc. It’s just a very expensive public school. It was always in the top 10 most expensive OOS schools until the UC’s took over a few years ago.
@mommdc: Many kids want to go away for college. Remember that to a Floridian, snow (and a white Christmas/holiday season are novelties). So if the cost is the same, they may want the change. Also, many Floridians have roots elsewhere. Some may be legacies.
“I believe quite a few schools are Div1 but don’t play football.”
@PurpleTitan: My bad.
@prof2dad, no worries.
Well, your assumption that I’m saying less NJ students should attend college is more than a little rash. However, only two of the schools you mentioned (Rutgers Newark and Stockton) are respectable. Montclair, while considered decent among New Jerseyans, is mediocre in general, and William Paterson is poor no matter which way you look at it. Whether or not they’re filled to the brim doesn’t determine how good they are academically. NJ is just insanely densely populated.
Call me elitist if you want, but I’m just saying the truth; NJ’s public university offerings are academically average and have poor ROI values considering the cost. Irrespective of whether or not they happen to be full due to population density, part of the reason migration is so high is because NJ students/families can find (and afford) OOS options that are more attractive, academically and socially. Students who end up returning to NJ from OOS often don’t return by choice.
Another point of view from NJ.
NJ has some of the brightest students (always gets the highest NMF cut-off scores) and not enough places for these students. It is a densely populated state - with a HS population most similar to Massachusetts. However, in MA you have a world of choices of colleges - public, private, big, small, LAC, speciality, all-girls, etc. Not so in NJ.
Your choices are Princeton (lots of luck getting in), Rutgers ( not for anybody who doesn’t want a huge school), and TCNJ (sort of a boutique college - very few majors available compared to most state colleges). At Rutgers and TCNJ you will be with almost all kids from New Jersey - so you won’t get the diversity of students with varying backgrounds.
Many NJ students go to Maryland, Del, Penn State, and Pittsburgh - these schools have reasonable OOS tuition and offer experiences you won’t get at home and are not very far away.
I believe Rutgers has rolling admissions and even top students who don’t apply early don’t get in (the places are just filled up). But I agree with an earlier comment, many NJ students don’t apply to any in-state options.
@kiddie Yup. The only in-state option I applied to two years ago was a private that was my safety. I got substantial FA and was recruited very aggressively, but in hindsight I would go back and choose an in-state public as my safety.
University of Vermont: One of my cousins went there, then another, then another . . . and now there’s a whole branch of my family living in Burlington. People really, really like it Yes, it’s more expensive than many other public universities, but it seems to deliver the goods both in terms of education and in terms of college experience. The people I know who went there were not good candidates for Harvard or Princeton; they weren’t going to be great intellectuals or Nobel-prize researchers. They grew up there, were happy, and got marketable skills. That’s pretty good.