NCAA reorg imminent

[ggait]

Wow.

I’ll check back in on 11/1.

OU and UT haggled a deal to get out one year early. Which means Clemson and FSU should have no problem ditching 13 years early.

Got it.

[JoeMauer89]

Wow.

I’ll check back in on 11/1.

OU and UT haggled a deal to get out one year early. Which means Clemson and FSU should have no problem ditching 13 years early.

Got it.

Joe

[viho]

Dr Pepper just nailed it….

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fdrEH3AOvyw

[ggait]

You missed the most important tidbit … that ESPN is helping Texas and OK transition to the SEC with some $$$. Remember, the Big 12 once openly (and credibly) accused ESPN of trying to screw over the conference to help the SEC steal TX and OK.

Doc misses the most important point. The SEC and the ACC are both primary properties of ESPN. Big 12 is a secondary property of ESPN.

So it makes sense for ESPN to provide from modest assistance to enable OU and UT to move one year early from the Big 12 (Fox primarily) to the SEC (ESPN primarily).

So why would ESPN pay money to facilitate FSU and Clemson to leave 13 years early (huge dollars) to move from one primary ESPN property to another ESPN property? Who voluntarily pays extra for something they already own?

If I'm wrong about that, I'll be back on 11/1 to eat crow.

[44WeWantMore]

Pseudonymous poster, but this is the first I have heard that *every* player on ND Football gets NIL money.

According to the thread, if Jordan Faison had been promised a lax scholarship last year, now that money will be freed for the benefit of a different lacrosse player.

In their heyday, Navy used their football players to advantage, especially as defensemen.

[xxxxxxx]

Pseudonymous poster, but this is the first I have heard that *every* player on ND Football gets NIL money.

According to the thread, if Jordan Faison had been promised a lax scholarship last year, now that money will be freed for the benefit of a different lacrosse player.

In their heyday, Navy used their football players to advantage, especially as defensemen.

I am pretty sure every athlete at Penn State gets $3,000 a semester in NIL money.

[Farfromgeneva]

Peltz has a mixed track record and is a product of Michael Mullen who helped him take a crappy industrial company’s cash/balance sheet and be a guinea pig for the nascent high yield market under Drexel. Got absolutely smoked on GE a few years back. But he’s been around for 45yrs in this world and has had some wins so he’s seen a lot. He’s now elbowing Disney’s Mgt which impacts this discussion.


Why Nelson Peltz Grew Impatient With Disney’s Turnaround Efforts

Activist adds shares, while the company plans changes to ESPN and Hulu

Nelson Peltz said his proxy fight against was over in February, but Bob Iger knew the activist investor might return.

Peltz and the Disney CEO remained in direct contact this year, and Iger sought to reassure him that Disney’s $5.5 billion in budget cuts and elimination of 7,000 jobs were progressing quickly, according to people familiar with the matter.

Iger spoke to Peltz, co-founder of Trian Fund Management, on the phone in May after Disney’s second-quarter earnings report, in which the company reported that it reduced losses in its streaming business, and tried to reassure him that the cost-saving plan was working, these people said.

As the share price declined over the summer, however, the Trian team lost confidence in Disney’s ability to right the ship, even as the company’s board in July extended Iger’s contract through 2026, according to people familiar with the matter.

When Wall Street analysts began reducing their target price for Disney shares, it caught Peltz’s attention and contributed to his sense that Disney wasn’t on a path to financial health, according to people familiar with the matter. The company’s stock closed at $78.32 last Wednesday, its lowest level in more than nine years.

The activist is seeking several board seats, including one for Peltz, and wants the board to be more focused, accountable and aligned with shareholder interests, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

Disney shares, which have traded under $100 for most of the year, rose 2.1% to $84.70 Monday, more than the S&P 500. Peltz’s Trian Fund Management has boosted its stake in Disney to around 30 million shares, making the hedge fund one of Disney’s largest shareholders.

Iger has made progress with some of his stated goals to reduce costs and make streaming profitable, but struggled with others. Since announcing in July that the company is seeking a strategic partner for ESPN, the sports unit has held discussions with a range of organizations, including professional sports leagues and telecom providers.

Elsewhere, an effort to fold Hulu into Disney+ has been slowed by delays, according to people familiar with the matter. Some features designed to attract customers to a planned new Disney+ and Hulu bundle won’t be available when the Hulu tile within Disney+ debuts later this year.

Overseas, Disney has begun to have discussions about selling all or a stake of its Disney India business, as The Wall Street Journal first reported. Iger in July said Disney’s traditional TV assets, which include ABC and FX, “may not be core” to the company going forward, which was interpreted by many as hanging a for-sale sign on them.

Here is an update on some of the initiatives Iger has so far set in motion.

ESPN’s future

ESPN has said it is preparing to transform the network into a fully direct-to-consumer streaming service in coming years. Meanwhile, Iger has taken steps to bolster ESPN’s finances and attract new viewers, especially younger males.

The company has explored pacts with the National Football League and National Basketball Association in which the leagues would supply programming and assets in exchange for small equity stakes in ESPN, according to people familiar with the situation.

In the case of the NFL, the league could contribute assets such as the NFL+ subscription service, which has mobile rights to many games, while the NBA could contribute the NBA League Pass package, a subscription service that lets fans watch games outside their home markets.

Such partnerships could help ESPN add even more programming to its new app, broadening its appeal. ESPN also has talked to Major League Baseball about a deal that would give it the right to stream local telecasts in some markets.

Those talks are very early, the people cautioned, and might not go anywhere. Under any such arrangement, Disney, which owns 80% of ESPN, would maintain majority control, and Hearst, which owns 20%, would maintain its stake.

ESPN is also exploring adding a distribution partner to help market the new service, and has had talks with Verizon and T-Mobile

Hulu hurdles

Iger said in February that Disney might not be interested in buying the remaining third of the Hulu streaming video service it owns with
Comcast
, but months later reversed course and said it would pull the service closer to its core Disney+ streaming service.

A plan to integrate Hulu into Disney+ has hit roadbumps and in April was delayed amid companywide cost cuts and layoffs and a growing to-do list for the company’s technology development teams.

The tech team working on integrating the streaming service into Disney+ pushed the project deadline to the end of the year from September, the people said. Key features designed to attract new customers to its newly launched Hulu/Disney bundle have been delayed until March.

When the new Hulu tile launches, it will not include all the content currently on the platform—Disney is still negotiating some licensing agreements for shows and movies. It also won’t immediately offer some functionalities, such as personalization of Hulu programming based on a subscriber’s past Disney+ viewing, as initially planned.

Disney has projected that these features, as well as one that would prompt viewers to sign up for a new Hulu/Disney+ bundle could draw as many as 150,000 subscribers to a new Hulu/Disney bundle over the next year and potentially generate millions of dollars in revenue, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Streaming profitability

Disney, like its competitors, is struggling to balance the need to cut costs while growing its streaming services and realizing these two goals can run counter to each other. For Iger, who returned as CEO of Disney last November, being able to make the company’s goal of streaming profitability by September 2024 is seen as crucial.

In August, the company unveiled a round of price increases to its streaming products, raising the cost of the ad-free versions of Disney+ and Hulu by more than 20% each in October, the second round of price hikes in about a year. The latest increase, which takes effect this month, was moved up from December, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Among priorities for the streaming team—whose projects have code-names after Disney characters, such as Yoda for “Yield Optimization Delivery Allocation” or Dory for “Disney Optimization and Revenue Yield”—are rolling out ads internationally and implementing ways to crack down on password sharing.

Write to Robbie Whelan at [email protected] and Jessica Toonkel at [email protected]

[Farfromgeneva]

Disney Sheds New Light on ESPN’s Financial Challenges

Entertainment giant released more detailed information on its sports business as it seeks a strategic partner for ESPN

Isabella Simonetti

Profits from ESPN-branded TV networks, ESPN programming on the ABC network and ESPN+ fell 7.8% to $2.06 billion in those nine months. The company shared more-detailed financial results for the business as it seeks a potential strategic partner to help shape the future of ESPN’s content and distribution.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Disney’s sports business is facing a number of challenges including cord-cutting and the rising price of sports rights fees as it looks to shepherd its business into its next era. The company is planning to make its ESPN cable network available to cord-cutters as a streaming service to adapt to shifting consumer tastes.

Earnings from Disney’s flagship sports brand represented about 19% of companywide operating income in the first nine months of the company’s fiscal year.

Within the sports segment, Disney’s domestic business has fared better than its international operations, the filing shows. Its Star India unit has suffered since losing a high-profile cricket rights package, and Disney is now exploring strategic options for that business, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

Disney’s once-lucrative traditional television business has suffered from relentless and accelerated cord-cutting, forcing it to rethink the future of that business and quickly pivot to streaming.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Revenue within the sports segment grew 8% to $17.3 billion in Disney’s 2022 fiscal year, and operating income fell nearly 1% to $2.7 billion, according to the filing.

ESPN has explored pacts with the National Football League and National Basketball Association in which the leagues would supply programming and assets in exchange for small equity stakes in ESPN, The Journal previously reported.

ESPN is also exploring adding a distribution partner to help market the new service, and has had talks with
Verizon
and
T-Mobile
, The Journal reported.

[pcowlax]

Pseudonymous poster, but this is the first I have heard that *every* player on ND Football gets NIL money.

According to the thread, if Jordan Faison had been promised a lax scholarship last year, now that money will be freed for the benefit of a different lacrosse player.

In their heyday, Navy used their football players to advantage, especially as defensemen.

I am pretty sure every athlete at Penn State gets $3,000 a semester in NIL money.

Not sure what volleyball is getting but football is get a HELL of a lot more than that. According to Ryan Day, players are now getting 5-10,000 to take official visits at OSU. They are having to pay them that just to visit! Every player who seems the field at ND is getting tens of thousands of dollars, some are getting hundreds of thousands. Of course they are also getting $250,000+ if they stay 4 years in scholarship money, which somehow always seems to be forgotten in these discussions

[44WeWantMore]

Pseudonymous poster, but this is the first I have heard that *every* player on ND Football gets NIL money.

According to the thread, if Jordan Faison had been promised a lax scholarship last year, now that money will be freed for the benefit of a different lacrosse player.

In their heyday, Navy used their football players to advantage, especially as defensemen.

I am pretty sure every athlete at Penn State gets $3,000 a semester in NIL money.

Not sure what volleyball is getting but football is get a HELL of a lot more than that. According to Ryan Day, players are now getting 5-10,000 to take official visits at OSU. They are having to pay them that just to visit! Every player who seems the field at ND is getting tens of thousands of dollars, some are getting hundreds of thousands. Of course they are also getting $250,000+ if they stay 4 years in scholarship money, which somehow always seems to be forgotten in these discussions

I know for a fact that the guardians of one destitute ND student who got in based on academics never saw a bill, and the student graduated without a penny of debt. Unfortunately there was no NIL offered for academics.

[Farfromgeneva]

Pseudonymous poster, but this is the first I have heard that *every* player on ND Football gets NIL money.

According to the thread, if Jordan Faison had been promised a lax scholarship last year, now that money will be freed for the benefit of a different lacrosse player.

In their heyday, Navy used their football players to advantage, especially as defensemen.

I am pretty sure every athlete at Penn State gets $3,000 a semester in NIL money.

Not sure what volleyball is getting but football is get a HELL of a lot more than that. According to Ryan Day, players are now getting 5-10,000 to take official visits at OSU. They are having to pay them that just to visit! Every player who seems the field at ND is getting tens of thousands of dollars, some are getting hundreds of thousands. Of course they are also getting $250,000+ if they stay 4 years in scholarship money, which somehow always seems to be forgotten in these discussions

I mean they do it in cutting edge research recruiting so why not sports?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OHSYWIAAY2o

I think suing full sticker price is as specious as suggesting it has no value. You have to use the average net cost to have an honest discussion. And it becomes it reflect as the drop of piss trying to get into Maplerhorpes bucket of revenue generated and expense as a % of rev that coaches, administration and other soft coats and transfers of value are.

[pcowlax]

Pseudonymous poster, but this is the first I have heard that *every* player on ND Football gets NIL money.

According to the thread, if Jordan Faison had been promised a lax scholarship last year, now that money will be freed for the benefit of a different lacrosse player.

In their heyday, Navy used their football players to advantage, especially as defensemen.

I am pretty sure every athlete at Penn State gets $3,000 a semester in NIL money.

Not sure what volleyball is getting but football is get a HELL of a lot more than that. According to Ryan Day, players are now getting 5-10,000 to take official visits at OSU. They are having to pay them that just to visit! Every player who seems the field at ND is getting tens of thousands of dollars, some are getting hundreds of thousands. Of course they are also getting $250,000+ if they stay 4 years in scholarship money, which somehow always seems to be forgotten in these discussions

I mean they do it in cutting edge research recruiting so why not sports?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OHSYWIAAY2o

I think suing full sticker price is as specious as suggesting it has no value. You have to use the average net cost to have an honest discussion. And it becomes it reflect as the drop of tick trying to get into Maplerhorpes bucket of revenue generated and expense as a % of rev that coaches, administration and other soft coats and transfers of value are.

I think I need to run that through Google translate/grammar. Not sure the relevance of recruiting graduates to jobs has to recruiting players to school. And I can more emphatically assure you “academic” recruits, to the extent such a thing exists, are not getting paid to attend schools (though many do of course get scholarships, which are again big money). It always baffles me to hear people poo-pooing how much money it actually is to get a full 4 year ride to college these days. With the interest over a full term loan you are talking 3-400,000 or more. It’s not the 50’s. Certainly as compared to the entire revenue of the football program at most schools it isn’t a huge amount but tell that to a parent who has actually had to pay their kid’s way through school.

[Farfromgeneva]

Pseudonymous poster, but this is the first I have heard that *every* player on ND Football gets NIL money.

According to the thread, if Jordan Faison had been promised a lax scholarship last year, now that money will be freed for the benefit of a different lacrosse player.

In their heyday, Navy used their football players to advantage, especially as defensemen.

I am pretty sure every athlete at Penn State gets $3,000 a semester in NIL money.

Not sure what volleyball is getting but football is get a HELL of a lot more than that. According to Ryan Day, players are now getting 5-10,000 to take official visits at OSU. They are having to pay them that just to visit! Every player who seems the field at ND is getting tens of thousands of dollars, some are getting hundreds of thousands. Of course they are also getting $250,000+ if they stay 4 years in scholarship money, which somehow always seems to be forgotten in these discussions

I mean they do it in cutting edge research recruiting so why not sports?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OHSYWIAAY2o

I think suing full sticker price is as specious as suggesting it has no value. You have to use the average net cost to have an honest discussion. And it becomes it reflect as the drop of tick trying to get into Maplerhorpes bucket of revenue generated and expense as a % of rev that coaches, administration and other soft coats and transfers of value are.

I think I need to run that through Google translate/grammar. Not sure the relevance of recruiting graduates to jobs has to recruiting players to school. And I can more emphatically assure you “academic” recruits, to the extent such a thing exists, are not getting paid to attend schools (though many do of course get scholarships, which are again big money). It always baffles me to hear people poo-pooing how much money it actually is to get a full 4 year ride to college these days. With the interest over a full term loan you are talking 3-400,000 or more. It’s not the 50’s. Certainly as compared to the entire revenue of the football program at most schools it isn’t a huge amount but tell that to a parent who has actually had to pay their kid’s way through school.

So I paid my own way effectively (cosign Stanford Loan and trimester/semester working Capital at a school far above my economic class and stitched together scholarships then borrower a lot for grad school and in this Millenium. I think I understand higher ed financial dynamics rather than anachronistic thinking. This type of thinking would include pretending the sticker price is anywhere near the average net cost of attendance. Like from the 50s. Another anachronistic mindset would be to use broken kiddie math to suggest that total dollars out the door means anything without discounting it and adjusting if for the delta of average lifetime earnings without a degree.

Everything in your argument is specious or not factual and ignores any sense or proportion and is wildly myopic. It’s that simple. Hit the Google machine all you like and you’ll find:

1. It’s bulls**t to throw the gross list price out there and conflate it as “cost”. Further almost 100% of higher ed undergrad institutions forecasts a net deficit YOY and backfill the projected gap with something around 2-6% of the endowment (as 5% has to kicked out every year under 501c3.
2. It’s juvenile thinking and intellectually fallible (wrong) to pretend one can adjudicate “value” without looking at both numerator and denominator as well as an evaluation of the distributed expenditures, both opex and capex.
3. I have a friend who was a “good will hunting”kid and absolutely got recruited and paid to go to Harvard for undergrad where he triple majored (doing calc three at SUNG Binghamton when we were juniors in HS) and then then NSA and DoD paid him to get his masters in discrete math at JHU and they begged him to go further there but he was bored. So that’s not true either.
4. You can try to “son” me and tell me it’s not the 50s as “proof” Ike the grey haired execs when theyre caught in idiocy or accounting/economic arbitrage that fundamentally alters the deal my client was represented as negotiated while giving me the “I didn’t fall Off the turnip truck yesterday” reply - public C suite professionals often) but it doesn’t change that talking about gross cost of attendance, even using your bulls**t fully loaded number, doesn’t account for the subsidy. Which means you’re buying money at less than 100 cents on the dollar or Par.
Lastly since you are the one who doesn’t get it and assumes others don’t know the value of a dollar earned, which is laughable:

What’s the value of your degree if you move up meaningful in USNWR for most white collar professions (regardless of market distortions or inefficiencies in the signal value of undergraduate degree names)? Does your sophisticated financial analysis include something akin to this for the “capital” that is leveraged to generate value?

https://theathletic.com/2637773/2021/06 ... lie/?amp=1

When Saban started at Alabama in 2007, the incoming freshman class included 3,035 students from Alabama and 1,503 out-of-state students. Alabama’s fall 2020 class included 2,701 students from Alabama and 3,806 from outside the state. Why is that significant? Because out-of-state students pay about three times what in-state students pay in tuition. What does that have to do with Saban? The Flutie Effect.

https://theathletic.com/2637773/2021/06 ... lie/?amp=1

[44WeWantMore]

I know in my area Alabama is surprisingly popular. I heard, but did not confirm, that depending on where you end up on the National Merit Scholarship list, you can get effectively in-state tuition, or a full ride.

[Farfromgeneva]

I know in my area Alabama is surprisingly popular. I heard, but did not confirm, that depending on where you end up on the National Merit Scholarship list, you can get effectively in-state tuition, or a full ride.

Ive got a friend who’s West Point/u chi and makes college is affordable as a full payer money whos son college list was Patriot
league and the like type schools (lower edge of ivies level) and changed his mind because he wanted a big football school and buddy is actually spending cash out the door $60k/yr for…Auburn.

[ggait]

Because out-of-state students pay about three times what in-state students pay in tuition. What does that have to do with Saban? The Flutie Effect.

I'd bet that the full pay percentage for Bama OOS is pretty low. The game at Bama is to price it so that most OOS families will not pay much more than what Bama's in-state sticker price is.

If you have a 32 ACT and a 3.5 HS GPA, you get an automatic "presidential" merit scholarship (i.e. discount) worth $28k per year. 30 ACT and 3.5 gets you $24k per year. IS tuition is $11k, OOS tuition is $32k. Room and board is $14k.

So the Saban effect is not getting OOS kids to pay $46k per year to attend Bama. Duh.

The Saban effect is making UA visible and popular and cool enough so that OOS kids may want to apply and go to a school that would otherwise not be attractive and on their radar. But UA could never enroll those kids if they charged the parents full OOS rates.

So if Johnny wants to go to UA, UA is viable if the parents only have to pay $25-30k all-in OOS. Since $25-30k is about what those parents would pay to send Johnny to their Home State U at in-state tuition rates.

We know several Colorado families who sent their mildly smart kids to Bama OOS since it didn't cost any more than going to CU or CSU. And they could also brag about the huge scholarship Johnny got -- because Johnny is so very smart.

I suspect the Coach Prime effect will help CU (already 45% OOS) pull in even more OOS kids (CA and TX have long been the two biggest OOS markets for CU).

[Typical Lax Dad]

Because out-of-state students pay about three times what in-state students pay in tuition. What does that have to do with Saban? The Flutie Effect.

I'd bet that the full pay pecentage for Bama OOS is pretty low. The game at Bama is to price it so that most OOS families will not pay much more than what Bama's in-state sticker price is.

If you have a 32 ACT and a 3.5 HS GPA, you get an automatic "presidential" merit scholarship (i.e. discount) worth $28k per year. 30 ACT and 3.5 gets you $24k per year. IS tuition is $11k, OOS tuition is $32k. Room and board is $14k.

So the Saban effect is not getting OOS kids to pay $46k per year to attend Bama. Duh.

The Saban effect is making UA visible and popular and cool enough so that OOS kids may want to apply and go to a school that would otherwise not be attractive and on their radar. But UA could never enroll those kids if they charged the parents full OOS rates.

So if Johnny wants to go to UA, UA is viable if the parents only have to pay $25-30k all-in OOS. Since $25-30k is about what those parents would pay to send Johnny to their Home State U at in-state tuition rates.

We know several Colorado families who sent their mildly smart kids to Bama OOS since it didn't cost any more than going to CU or CSU. And they could also brag about the huge scholarship Johnny got -- because Johnny is so very smart.

I suspect the Coach Prime effect will help CU (already 45% OOS) pull in even more OOS kids (CA and TX have long been the two biggest OOS markets for CU).

Yep….

https://www.nacubo.org/Research/2021/NA ... ting-Study

I read one of these years ago when financing a college dorm. VP of Finance provided it. Pretty much what you said.

[ggait]

Yeah -- there's such a huge difference between sticker price and actual price for colleges. Similar to a commercial airplane flight -- everybody (excluding first class) gets the same ride but everyone pays a different price.

For my 3 kids, the highest price I paid was full sticker in-state for our meh home state U. For our least scholarly kid.

Middle price paid was for my pretty smart kid at a top 40 USNWR with a merit schollie (i.e. tuition discount).

My super smart kid should have cost the most by far. I was assuming full sticker ($75k annual) at a fancy top 15 (where there's little merit discounting and no need based aid for our income level). Ended up being the cheapest. A rare full tuition schollie at a top 15 private -- the equivalent of winning the college version of Powerball.

The system makes sense when you drill into it. Not transparent or logical on the surface though.

[wgdsr]

there are a ton of ways to skin a cat, and these institutions are finding whatever works for them in the short, intermediate and long term. higher profile usnwr will beget better enrollment numbers short term. they also may enable the long term opportunity to get real endowments way down the line (take a look at the miniscule endowment numbers in the sec). so leveraging "the saban effect", but not in the way it's thrown out there. all of this can provide permanence of place and stature in changing times that will most certainly continue to evolve.

some states have their better in-state schools with very little to almost no merit based awards, and/or are very tough to get into... so surrounding or other states' schools now can be competitive on price.

there are tons of kids from my area going to bama, auburn, south cackalacka, georgia, clemmy, tenn.

lower merit hurdles is one way. another is the common market:
https://www.sreb.org/academic-common-market
find a major your home state doesn't offer, and boom, the southeast is your oyster. and some kids want sunny winters and don't want regular drive-by's from the rents.

[Farfromgeneva]

Because out-of-state students pay about three times what in-state students pay in tuition. What does that have to do with Saban? The Flutie Effect.

I'd bet that the full pay percentage for Bama OOS is pretty low. The game at Bama is to price it so that most OOS families will not pay much more than what Bama's in-state sticker price is.

If you have a 32 ACT and a 3.5 HS GPA, you get an automatic "presidential" merit scholarship (i.e. discount) worth $28k per year. 30 ACT and 3.5 gets you $24k per year. IS tuition is $11k, OOS tuition is $32k. Room and board is $14k.

So the Saban effect is not getting OOS kids to pay $46k per year to attend Bama. Duh.

The Saban effect is making UA visible and popular and cool enough so that OOS kids may want to apply and go to a school that would otherwise not be attractive and on their radar. But UA could never enroll those kids if they charged the parents full OOS rates.

So if Johnny wants to go to UA, UA is viable if the parents only have to pay $25-30k all-in OOS. Since $25-30k is about what those parents would pay to send Johnny to their Home State U at in-state tuition rates.

We know several Colorado families who sent their mildly smart kids to Bama OOS since it didn't cost any more than going to CU or CSU. And they could also brag about the huge scholarship Johnny got -- because Johnny is so very smart.

I suspect the Coach Prime effect will help CU (already 45% OOS) pull in even more OOS kids (CA and TX have long been the two biggest OOS markets for CU).

I don’t think you fully get the money families in FL-SoVa-TN-AR. My buddy isn’t the only doctor, lawyer or banker around the Atlanta MSA with that story. And on top of Ivy or near Ivy academic options they also get the hope scholarship with its low threshold for UGA. And still go to a generic state school in Al, Ar, Tn etc. these cats are spending > $50k a year for what they think is a subpar and suboptimal education for their kids. (All or most married JV versions of me who like seeing their kids on football weekends with shades on and reporting back about it as well of course..)

So maybe the Fairfield Co or Sand Hill Rd kid isn’t doing it. But new money highly educated parents are ponying up for their kids who have a potpourri of strong alternatives available. Regularly. It confuses me and I live with, in and around it here now. But it’s modern reality /