I can't speak for the AL schools, but this is a myth for GA state colleges. Based on applicant admission %, Tech is much more selective for out of state. See
@ChiTownGT's post above.
I think most public schools are required by their state governments to have a minimum percentage of students from in-state to make sure there is adequate numbers of potential employees for businesses in their state. It does no good to spend a bunch of state taxpayer money on the school if they are training a bunch of people who are not from there and are likely to leave once they are done.
Looking at admissions stats for 2022:
About 50,500 freshmen applicants, only 3,700 enrolled.
Including transfers and freshmen, 42% are Asian, and an additional 15% are Hispanic or Multiracial. So almost 60% of kids who likely did not grow up watching/playing/interested in football, even less likely that their parents did. 25% of freshmen don't speak English as their first language, 43% speak another language at home.
39% of incoming freshmen/transfers are women. Anecdotal, but in my experience women tend not to be die hard fans of their undergrad's teams, unless they marry someone who also went there.
For out of state students, of the top 10 states students are coming from, only Florida (2), North Carolina (8), and Texas(10) are in the South, and Florida is the only one in the top 5. The rest are from California or the northeast. The non-southern students are less likely to have grown up with the rabid football culture common here.
When I look at all of this, and add in that Tech students are mostly nerds and less likely to be athletically inclined anway, it seems to me we are bringing in far too few students that will naturally sustain our fanbase, much less grow it. There would have to be a serious, intentional, and constant effort by the school to turn all these kids into Tech football fans, and I don't see that happening.
