DEI Killed the Ivy League: Elite College Admissions Shift to the South, Parents Ditch Woke ‘Elite’ Colleges

Conservative News DailyAugust 18, 2025

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The article discusses a shift in American higher education, highlighting how Southern colleges are rising as new elite institutions while traditional Ivy League schools face declining appeal. According to Zachary Marschall, an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, more high school students from the Northeast are choosing Southern colleges due to their lower costs and less ideologically driven campus environments. Southern universities like Auburn,Clemson,Rice,and Emory have become more selective,with declining acceptance rates reflecting their growing prestige.

In contrast, Ivy League schools struggle with lower application numbers and have increasingly relied on enrolling foreign students to maintain their numbers. The article attributes Southern colleges’ appeal to their pragmatic approach to education,distancing themselves from what is described as “far-left craziness” prevalent at many Northeastern schools,including issues related to diversity,equity,inclusion (DEI),and antisemitism. Marschall cites his own university as an exmaple, praising its sensible administration and swift action against antisemitism, contrasting this with controversies at Ivy League institutions like Columbia University, which faced protests and government settlements related to pro-hamas activities and antisemitism.

The article concludes that Southern universities’ focus on rational decision-making,bans on DEI activism,and practical education resonates with students looking for a stable learning environment that prioritizes academic success and future job prospects over activism.

Southern colleges are reportedly taking over as America’s newest elite institutions of education as the old Ivy Leaguers reportedly fall further prey to DEI and antisemitism.

“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,” according to a New York Post op-ed by Zachary Marschall.

Marschall is an adjunct assistant professor of arts administration at the University of Kentucky.

As Southern schools like his have become more prestigious, they’ve simultaneously become much more selective about who they admit.

I have two teenagers and have been talking to a lot of families, and I’m convinced we’re going to have a very different idea of what colleges are prestigious much faster than many people realize. https://t.co/mk9ABL2x9h

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) August 16, 2025

“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%,” Marschall explained.

“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%,” he said.

Conversely, so few students have been applying to Ivy League schools that they’ve reportedly been forced to accept more foreign students to maintain their longtime enrollment rates.

As to why students are flocking to southern schools, Marschall suspected it was because they’re simply “run better” and “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.”

“Far-left craziness” such as pro-Hamas riots, lectures on so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and rants about white people.

Regarding White People ~

Rutgers professor: We gotta take these motherf***ers out.

USC Professor: We need a holocaust against White people.

Harvard Professor: Abolish the White race.

College Professors: White genocide for Christmas, all Whites should kIII themselves, when is… pic.twitter.com/jy1XI0rUiE

— Dane (@UltraDane) December 8, 2024

Marschall cited his own school, the University of Kentucky, as a shining example of the South’s best.

“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,” he wrote for the Post.

That’s why, he explained, that earlier this summer the school “swiftly fired” an antisemitic professor who’d “launched an online petition calling for international warfare against Jews.”

As this was happening, one Ivy League school, Columbia University, was busy “agreeing to a $221 million settlement with the Trump administration” for refusing to put an end to the antisemitic, pro-Hamas protests that broke out after the Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel.

On the first day of classes, anti-Israel protestors interrupted @Columbia’s “History of Modern Israel” class and handed out flyers showing a boot crushing a Star of David. Columbia is out of control. And to be clear, there is no “academic freedom” to disrupt classes. pic.twitter.com/n0x9d0AxHw

— Columbia Jewish & Israeli Students ✡️🇮🇱 (@CUJewsIsraelis) January 21, 2025

“The contrast could not be starker,” Marschall asserted.

The more that the Ivy Leaguers have doubled down on “woke,” the more that southern schools have embraced “pragmatism,” “rational decision-making,” “logical solutions,” and “DEI bans,” he argued.

“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,” he continued.

“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,” he concluded.