re: When did Tulane's student profile change?

quote:

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Once upon a time it was a private college for southern ballers. Somewhere along the way it became a safety school for Jersey kids who didn't get into Duke.

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It's been like that since at least the 1960s. I once read a late '60s book on college life which profiled a number of colleges. It mentioned that TU was mostly outsiders, partly b/c tuition was too much for locals.

On a related note: the entire state college system of the South was once the backup plan for Yankees. The same book I cited alluded to this, and IIRC Vonnegut mentioned it in one of his novels.

The South had a much smaller population in those days, and of course a number of state schools. Northerners who couldn't get Ivy League scholarships or make it into the overcrowded Northern state colleges would go South instead of paying expensive tuition at lesser private colleges in the North.

My favorite example of this is the great jazz pianist Bill Evans* (from New Jersey) who in the late '40s somehow ended up at SELU!










*He's buried in BR. Go pay your respects.