re: What would it take to make NOLA great again?

I think a part of that is how Tulane has shifted its academic focus post-Katrina. Following the storm, the university shuttered its engineering programs, which were primarily made up of students from the New Orleans area.

While Tulane had long been a safety school for Jews from the Northeast, Tulane basically severed nearly all of its ties to Southeast Louisiana to chase that valuable east-coast market.

As a result, the University has become the most exclusive in the country (by way of rejection rate) while its percentage of in-state students has plummeted, along with the general New Orleanian’s connection to the University.

No one in Baton Rouge would deny that LSU is a big part of that city’s identity, but Tulane isn’t really part of New Orleans’s identity anymore, and Loyola especially isn’t. They’ve become expensive places for New Yorkers and Southern Californians to party for 4 years and then go home.