Why Gen Z is flocking to SEC universities
Right now, millions of high school seniors are finalizing their college applications and anticipating where they’ll spend the next four years studying and sleeping on bunk beds. If the most hashtagged universities on TikTok are any indication, a lot of them will be headed below the Mason-Dixon line.
You’ve probably heard about #RushTok, the corner of TikTok where young women at mostly Southern schools post their way through sorority rush season. The University of Alabama’s sorority selection process, commonly known as Bama Rush, brought the phenomenon to the mainstream with an eponymous Netflix documentary and seemingly turned into a recruitment tool for the school itself. The draw of Southern campus life has spread well beyond the sorority set, however.
Northerners are flocking to big Southern campuses in large numbers. From 2014 to 2023, the number of undergraduate students from the Northeast rose 91 percent at schools belonging to the Southeastern Conference (SEC), according to a recent Sunday Times report. That includes Alabama as well as the University of Tennessee and Ole Miss, which have all seen the number of Northeastern students grow by more than 500 percent from 2002 to 2022. Meanwhile, their recruitment offices are making more of an effort to target these students, as these publicly funded schools become more dependent on out-of-state dollars.
The shift in enrollment lines up with a broader cultural shift over the past decade with the growing influence of Southern culture — everything from the popularity of country music to fashion to businesses moving to red states. So it’s not a huge surprise to see this trend in higher education. There are plenty of practical reasons why these schools have become more appealing, like lower tuition rates and warm weather. But it doesn’t fully explain why universities that have historically been famous for their sports teams and frat parties suddenly seem to have the aspirational sheen of the Ivy League.
“Young people are more aware that attending college will likely come with decades of student debt, so the mentality is trending towards one of fun, enjoyment, and community,” says Kaley Mullin, founder of cultural relevance consultancy Cool Shiny Insights.
In the TikTok era, students are prioritizing a more visual and shareable college experience, one that includes large-scale social activities, like football games and Greek life. Gen Z seems to be driven by what they can post on their social media feeds and which hashtags they can partake in rather than what looks most impressive on their resumes.
The social aspect of attending these colleges isn’t just about TikTok views and clout, though. For a group of young people who came of age during pandemic lockdowns, attending a big state school in the South might represent an attempt to retrieve the years they lost. It’s also, according to what they see online, a path to finding more meaningful social experiences in an increasingly online world.
The graduating class of #RushTok
Greek life at Southern state schools is a particular draw for students from the Northeast. These campuses have entire villages with mansions for fraternities and sororities as well as massive parties and events every week. And thanks to #RushTok, the fascination with Greek life has become an even bigger international cultural fascination.
There’s some evidence that #RushTok is making the Southern sorority experience more popular with American college students, too. The National Panhellenic Conference, the trade association for 26 sororities in North America, reported that there’s been a “13 percent increase in recruitment registration” in the past two academic years. Aspiring chapter members from big state schools across the country have gone extremely viral with dance videos, in particular — which have taken on a life of their own with conservative commentators. Politics notwithstanding, TikTok users end up elevating their favorites to influencer status every fall.
Mullin says that the TikTok component of SEC and their evolving appeal to Northerners is related to the “overall feminization of college in America,” as women outpace men in college enrollment.
“Online college content tends to be about showcasing the vibe and aesthetics of a school,” she says. “Painting with a broad brush, Southern women are better positioned to succeed in that.”
The sudden and largely unexplained popularity of #RushTok has been chalked up to the type of women involved — most of them white, blonde, thin and more likely to land on users’ For You pages. Of course, these TikTokers tend to post about traditionally feminine activities, like selecting their outfits for different rush week events, which often resemble a modern Southern belle aesthetic. Mullin says, broadly speaking, it’s “more socially acceptable for Southern women to publicly perform femininity and to post that demonstration online than for Northern women.”
It remains to be seen if the influx of Northern women will reshape these more conservative customs. Meanwhile, whether it’s due to #RushTok or their well-documented shift to the right, young men also seem drawn to the SEC lifestyle and the more traditional institutions that characterize it.
The unflappable appeal of a party school
This is all a far cry from the public concerns surrounding sororities and fraternities in the 2010s, with movies and documentaries highlighting hazing and criticisms about racial exclusivity and traditional values among these groups. Cautionary tales about campus rape culture often centered around fraternities. Notoriously, Rolling Stone published a report in 2014 about an alleged gang rape by members of University of Virginia’s Phi Kappa Psi fraternity that made shock waves before it was eventually retracted and ruled as defamatory.
The stigma surrounding the unruliness of Greek life still lingers, but for Gen Z, the appeal of fraternities and sororities is more complicated. They aren’t necessarily drawn to the debauchery of this college culture for the same reasons as millennials were, according to Pietro Sasso, an associate professor at the University of Delaware who studies higher education. He says that the previous generation “mainly wanted to party,” but were also “attracted to the mysticism” around these secretive clubs. Gen Z, on the other hand, desires the visibility and virality that comes with being a part of a recognizable name.
“The 2010s was that Asher Roth, ‘I want a party’ era that was very reflective of millennials just wanting social experiences,” he says. “Gen Z wants that, but they want the visual pieces of it. They want to be seen and be tagged in pictures.”
Sports culture is another gravitational force for Northerners, especially because these SEC schools host Division I football teams that draw NFL-sized crowds. Their games, which are broadcast nationally, attract viewers from around the country. These live spectacles are another event that Gen Z can post on their feeds but also a fun experience that they can have in person, as they especially crave more live events. Plus, interest in sports has been on the rise for Gen Z over the past few years, whether through the influence of WAGs like Taylor Swift, betting, or national sports leagues making intentional efforts to recruit young fans.
Whether they’re attracted to football teams, Greek life, or the universities themselves, Sasso says Gen Z’s interest in the SEC lifestyle falls directly in line with their consumerist habits. More than previous generations, they’ve grown up with a heightened exposure to, and thus identification with, brands. It’s not surprising that they’ve also come to look at schools primarily as brands.
Social media clout and campus culture aside, the shift toward Southern schools might just come down to money for some incoming freshmen. Uncertainty about their economic futures seems to be influencing Gen Z’s decision-making and their tendency to prioritize vibes over academic rigor. After all, they’re going to college and searching for collective experiences in an era when getting a bachelor’s degree doesn’t guarantee professional success.
According to Mullin, “They’re thinking, ‘If I’m going to spend a bunch of money and the next four years of my life doing something without the promise of return on investment,’ I might as well have some fun and make some friends.”