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Post by brianfish on Aug 23, 2022 10:19:34 GMT -5
From La Salle Athletics Facebook page today we get this post. We could go 30-0 and the current batch of students wouldn't know or care. goexplorers.com/news/2022/8/23/general-win-prizes-for-attending-games-la-salle-athletics-announces-student-reward-program.aspxMy response: Many other schools have lotteries for their major sports games as demand far exceeds supply. La Salle is begging students to go. I wonder why. Let's see, La Salle has a 63% female student population rate and the picture here is 100%. Generally speaking, women go to games significantly less than men. So, to boost attendance, La Salle needs more guys. How should the school recruit more male students? Easy. Do the exact opposite of what they are doing now. The school needs a balanced approach to education, stop pandering to the ideological extremists overwhelmingly disfavored by men and the school's so-called leaders need to get back to athletic basics...basketball, baseball and track. Having a women's water polo team is just silly, but proof that Title IV is the mortal wound of mid-major men's athletics. Finally, whoever is the IT/PR staffer who posts crap like this alerting the world to the fact that we're begging kids to go to games needs to be fired. Will anyone listen, no, but I care, so I can hope. Not holding my breath though.
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Post by JoeFedorowicz on Aug 23, 2022 10:38:40 GMT -5
Don’t think the goal should be to get more male students to a school with a robust nursing program. There are plenty of male students. A lot of them like sports. The problem is the product they put on the court and the environment they establish for that product. Nobody is going to watch a losing team. A team that would routinely lose to the Sacred Hearts of the world.
And this wasn’t an Ash Howard problem, Giannini’s teams were also routinely beaten by +200 RPI teams at home. Outside of the years that Steve Smith and Ramon Galloway were on the team, his teams weren’t competitive. Ash’s teams were never competitive. Why come and cheer for a team that loses to a school that plays in the NEC or America East on a routine basis.
That’s the big problem. 95% of the problem. If the team was 18-12 every year, there’d be more students going. But there is an environment problem that has still yet to be rectified. I actually had some discussions with the past president regarding this and some changes were made, but many were on the alumni side. How do you get students to go to games when they’re on campus?
A smoke machine isn’t going to do it. A neon sign, not going to do it. A band, sorry to those that think it might, isn’t going to do it. Winning will do it and, in my opinion, benefits will do it.
So what would I do? I’d have a tent for students only similar to the alumni tent that gives out free pizzas and sodas. Pizzas and sodas for 100 students will run you a couple hundred bucks. I’d allow any student to score two free tickets for anyone that wants to come (pending availability). Getting a butt in the seat that would otherwise be empty gives you the potential to sell a pretzel to that person and maybe maybe maybe they like what they see and come back. But this will allow a student to bring their friends or parents to a game if they’d like.
Finally, La Salle needs a master of ceremonies and a corresponding DJ that can work together to make stoppages fun and lively. To make the game not a slog, even when the team might lose. You don’t need to do anything more than put people on camera and lead the cheers. When the left the school in 2009, there was a group of students that led certain things. I don’t love groups because the excitement level is different. Find someone that can do this and do it well. They might be students or they might be someone you need to pay $100 to in order to keep things fun for the students.
But you can’t serve two masters. You can’t say ‘we want this to be fun for the students’ while also having people say ‘the music is too loud’. Need to have these be independent things.
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Post by theneumann64 on Aug 23, 2022 10:45:52 GMT -5
As soon as I saw that post on social media, I knew there would be a response along these lines.
Isn't this the kind of thing we've been asking for for years? Come up with creative ways to entice kids to go? I too agree that it would be wonderful if we didn't HAVE to do that, and kids were beating down the doors to go to games. But they're not. It's admittedly been 15 years since I was at school, but there were plenty of male sports fans, kids who wore Eagles or Flyers shit every day, who couldn't be bothered to go to basketball games. Let's be real honest- leave your dorm room with TV, Wi-Fi, video games, and go sit in a shitty sweatbox of a building on plastic benches to watch us lose to Duquesne is a tough proposition, no matter how many male students there are.
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MisterD
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Post by MisterD on Aug 23, 2022 10:56:00 GMT -5
stop pandering to the ideological extremists overwhelmingly disfavored by men L. O. L.
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Post by GlitterBro #2 on Aug 23, 2022 11:04:51 GMT -5
Building on Joe's comments. The school promoted TiRease Holmes to the position of Dean of Students dedicated to enhancing the student experiences on campus, increasing student involvement, etc. www.lasalle.edu/blog/2022/07/18/get-to-know-la-salles-new-dean-of-students/As far as getting students to games, TiRease should be leveraging existing "affinity groups" on campus - a prime example is the fraternities and sororities. Get a competition or something going where the fraternity or sorority with the largest percentage or most members coming to games wins something or gets basketball gear with their letters on it or wins away game tickets and bussing the following year - something to get some healthy competition going internally with the student groups. Maybe each game keep a few courtside seats for the fraternity or sorority with the most students from the previous game. The pizza idea is great. Give the students a "game day" experience. If you get them going as students, they will come back as alumni. We don't have a ton of young alumni coming to games. I'm 51 years old and I feel like one of the youngest in the stands. Get 2 VR helmets and have two students battle it out on the jumbo screens in a virtual boxing match, or do something interactive where you do trivia with phones and people enter answers in at stoppages and toward the end of the game a prize is given out to the student who wins the contest. We've done that at work in meetings and it's fun and keeps people engaged. The school needs to think differently and meet students where they are today with technology and engagement. Instagram phot contest in-game, for example. Ultimately though, put a winning product on the floor and people will come.
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Post by theneumann64 on Aug 23, 2022 11:09:05 GMT -5
stop pandering to the ideological extremists overwhelmingly disfavored by men L. O. L. Only thing I'd say on this: Glitter has talked before about some alums not donating to the school because of what they see as political positions or actions at the school they don't agree with. I don't doubt that might be happening (whether I agree with their opinions or their judgment notwithstanding). But in this scenario, we're talking about potential students. So 18 year old kids. Do a lot of 18 year old male High School seniors really factor "potentially political leanings of the school's administrators" into their college decisions? I have to think that's a fairly small number of kids who even have that cross their minds (if they're considering La Salle in the first place, I'm sure it's a factor for kids considering Liberty, or on the other end, a place like Vassar).
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Post by theneumann64 on Aug 23, 2022 11:13:05 GMT -5
Building on Joe's comments. The school promoted TiRease Holmes to the position of Dean of Students dedicated to enhancing the student experiences on campus, increasing student involvement, etc. www.lasalle.edu/blog/2022/07/18/get-to-know-la-salles-new-dean-of-students/As far as getting students to games, TiRease should be leveraging existing "affinity groups" on campus - a prime example is the fraternities and sororities. Get a competition or something going where the fraternity or sorority with the largest percentage or most members coming to games wins something or gets basketball gear with their letters on it or wins away game tickets and bussing the following year - something to get some healthy competition going internally with the student groups. Maybe each game keep a few courtside seats for the fraternity or sorority with the most students from the previous game. The pizza idea is great. Give the students a "game day" experience. If you get them going as students, they will come back as alumni. We don't have a ton of young alumni coming to games. I'm 51 years old and I feel like one of the youngest in the stands. Get 2 VR helmets and have two students battle it out on the jumbo screens in a virtual boxing match, or do something interactive where you do trivia with phones and people enter answers in at stoppages and toward the end of the game a prize is given out to the student who wins the contest. We've done that at work in meetings and it's fun and keeps people engaged. The school needs to think differently and meet students where they are today with technology and engagement. Instagram phot contest in-game, for example. Ultimately though, put a winning product on the floor and people will come. Another issue too is you have to stick with these things and give them time to work and gain traction. If every year you're bringing in a new person with new ideas, you're never going to get anywhere. When I was in school and doing stuff with WEXP, every fall a new person would take over the website, decide the previous person did a crappy job, and start over. We'd have no website until March, then at the end of the year that person would graduate or lose interest and we'd start the process again in August. I think there's some of that going on here, or at least that's the potential danger.
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Post by JoeFedorowicz on Aug 23, 2022 11:27:05 GMT -5
Great point ⬆️
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MisterD
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Post by MisterD on Aug 23, 2022 11:46:35 GMT -5
Only thing I'd say on this: Glitter has talked before about some alums not donating to the school because of what they see as political positions or actions at the school they don't agree with. I don't doubt that might be happening (whether I agree with their opinions or their judgment notwithstanding). Right, older white dudes with enough wealth to atleast try to influence a university or not donate are a demo you can apply that to. Not "mostly girls are social activists".
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Post by brianfish on Aug 23, 2022 12:31:35 GMT -5
Based on the numbers and simple math, there are roughly 1400 male undergrads. That is not a sustainable number, especially/even for a school with a gym that doesn't seat 4000. Not sure about Joe's comment about nursing school and male students. Yes, ideology/politics is a significant factor in the school selection process. I know very personal and recent experience. Kids do know and care. True, Ws will help, but if there aren't enough bodies that care, then none of this matters. Bottom line is, kids, especially guys, aren't coming to 20th & Olney. If that's not addressed, then the school dies. I focus on the BS that comes from academia worldwide, but La Salle makes it worse. Worse because there are way too many options around Philly to be like everyone else.
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Post by theneumann64 on Aug 23, 2022 12:40:31 GMT -5
If I were to indulge in this for a minute- can you be specific? What is La Salle doing right now that's " pandering to the ideological extremists overwhelmingly disfavored by men" to the point that it's affecting male enrollment.
Like I said previously, I don't doubt its the case at some schools. I just don't see it applying to La Salle specifically in any significant way, compared to the dozens of other problems.
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Post by brianfish on Aug 23, 2022 13:10:26 GMT -5
If I were to indulge in this for a minute- can you be specific? What is La Salle doing right now that's " pandering to the ideological extremists overwhelmingly disfavored by men" to the point that it's affecting male enrollment. Like I said previously, I don't doubt its the case at some schools. I just don't see it applying to La Salle specifically in any significant way, compared to the dozens of other problems. La Salle has bought into the CRT mentality as evidenced by professors such as Gallagher and administrators such as our new VP of DEI without ANY opposing viewpoints. None. 0. Yes, academia is utterly lost and refuses to engage in real universal thinking, but its more of a problem at La Salle. With literally hundreds of choices around Philly, the decline in numbers of the Brothers, the Catholic Church's seemingly innumerable problems, the question is...why choose La Salle? We can discuss/argue a host of things, but the fact is La Salle isn't getting the students, especially male students, isn't getting any serious financial infusion and the best we could do was hire a 73 year old retiree as the head coach of our most visible program, athletic or otherwise. I love the place. I want it to not just survive, but to grow and thrive. I want Coach to be there for 10 20-win seasons. But because of its circumstances, it needs to stand out from, not emulate the the rest. How does it stand out today? And whatever your answer is, why isn't that working? The answer is, it doesn't. There's no difference between La Salle and anybody else in terms of thought. So, why go to North Philly when the kids can go anywhere else and still stay in their dorm rooms with their X Boxes?
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Post by theneumann64 on Aug 23, 2022 13:31:01 GMT -5
I agree with most of your last 3 paragraphs. I strongly disagree with everything you've written in the first, but that's beside the point.
"A professor wrote an op-ed about Systemic Racism" and "they have a Diversity Officer" sound like the things that might make a 65 year old Conservative Fox News viewer angry, but I have a hard time believing it's driving down male Undergrad enrollment in any meaningful way. There are some students that are highly politically motivated, probably more so than when I was looking at schools (although 2003-2004, when I was looking at schools wasn't exactly the Era of Good Feelings politically either), but I just don't believe that's on that many High School Seniors radar, as opposed to things like dorm facilities, dining options, academics, party culture, sports,surrounding neighborhood, etc.). Those are all areas La Salle faces obstacles for sure, and I think are much bigger barriers to overcome.
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Post by brianfish on Aug 23, 2022 13:52:53 GMT -5
I agree with most of your last 3 paragraphs. I strongly disagree with everything you've written in the first, but that's beside the point. "A professor wrote an op-ed about Systemic Racism" and "they have a Diversity Officer" sound like the things that might make a 65 year old Conservative Fox News viewer angry, but I have a hard time believing it's driving down male Undergrad enrollment in any meaningful way. There are some students that are highly politically motivated, probably more so than when I was looking at schools (although 2003-2004, when I was looking at schools wasn't exactly the Era of Good Feelings politically either), but I just don't believe that's on that many High School Seniors radar, as opposed to things like dorm facilities, dining options, academics, party culture, sports,surrounding neighborhood, etc.). Those are all areas La Salle faces obstacles for sure, and I think are much bigger barriers to overcome. Difference between driving down enrollment and encouraging kids to go. Abd please, its a lot more than an op-ed and a VP. If La Salle has the same outlook as everyone else combined with all of the other issues mentioned, why go? My point is simply, if you can't change location, endowment, facilities, etc to improve your situation, then do something that will. I focus on the ideological. You disagree. That's fine. Now tell me what they can do differently to bolster enrollment, quality enrollment, not quantity, and do it quickly.. Cutting tuition worked, briefly. It got some good press, but didn't last. Pretty new business school was nice, numbers still stagnant. Nearly destroy nursing, but it seems stable now is a net good, but not a campus wide fix for much. How 'bout a Catholic education rooted in the true teachings of the church, not found in today's "America" rag magazine. It worked for the first 100+ years. And if the answer is, the kids won't come, my answer is they're not now and if that doesn't work, why bother? We already have that school in the suburbs.
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Post by GlitterBro #2 on Aug 23, 2022 13:57:14 GMT -5
On the female / male ratio... years ago at an alumni board meeting there was a discussion about this and Admissions had done some surveys and follow-ups on people who had chosen not to come to La Salle, along with looking at some other academic research on how students make decisions about college choices.. One of the findings surprised me a bit...
Mothers generally had more significant influence over where their sons enrolled than fathers, and fathers generally had more significant influence over where their daughters enrolled than mothers. (I'm not saying this is absolute, but these were aggregate findings).
Where is this relevant? Mothers had more concern about their sons being in an area like 20th and Olney, wandering around by themselves, being reckless, etc. and encouraged their sons to look elsewhere. In contrast, fathers had more of a "she'll be fine attitude"..."She always is with people not by herself"..."She'll grow there and learn more about the real world"...etc. and dissuaded their daughters less from being in that environment.
This would suggest that schools in "bad areas" would have a higher female to male ratio. Looking at a comparator just down the street, Temple is 45% male and 55% female.
I wish I had access to the research and notes because I'm sure it would be an interesting read, but I remember all this was verbally discussed by Admissions at an Alumni Board meeting.
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Post by theneumann64 on Aug 23, 2022 13:59:23 GMT -5
On the female / male ratio... years ago at an alumni board meeting there was a discussion about this and Admissions had done some surveys and follow-ups on people who had chosen not to come to La Salle, along with looking at some other academic research on how students make decisions about college choices.. One of the findings surprised me a bit... Mothers generally had more significant influence over where their sons enrolled than fathers, and fathers generally had more significant influence over where their daughters enrolled than mothers. (I'm not saying this is absolute, but these were aggregate findings). Where is this relevant? Mothers had more concern about their sons being in an area like 20th and Olney, wandering around by themselves, being reckless, etc. and encouraged their sons to look elsewhere. In contrast, fathers had more of a "she'll be fine attitude"..."She always is with people not by herself"..."She'll grow there and learn more about the real world"...etc. and dissuaded their daughters less from being in that environment. This would suggest that schools in "bad areas" would have a higher female to male ratio. Looking at a comparator just down the street, Temple is 45% male and 55% female. I wish I had access to the research and notes because I'm sure it would be an interesting read, but I remember all this was verbally discussed by Admissions at an Alumni Board meeting. That's very interesting honestly. Can't say that's the output I would've expected.
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Post by theneumann64 on Aug 23, 2022 14:07:49 GMT -5
I agree with most of your last 3 paragraphs. I strongly disagree with everything you've written in the first, but that's beside the point. "A professor wrote an op-ed about Systemic Racism" and "they have a Diversity Officer" sound like the things that might make a 65 year old Conservative Fox News viewer angry, but I have a hard time believing it's driving down male Undergrad enrollment in any meaningful way. There are some students that are highly politically motivated, probably more so than when I was looking at schools (although 2003-2004, when I was looking at schools wasn't exactly the Era of Good Feelings politically either), but I just don't believe that's on that many High School Seniors radar, as opposed to things like dorm facilities, dining options, academics, party culture, sports,surrounding neighborhood, etc.). Those are all areas La Salle faces obstacles for sure, and I think are much bigger barriers to overcome. My point is simply, if you can't change location, endowment, facilities, etc to improve your situation, then do something that will. I focus on the ideological. You disagree. That's fine. Now tell me what they can do differently to bolster enrollment, quality enrollment, not quantity, and do it quickly.. How 'bout a Catholic education rooted in the true teachings of the church, not found in today's "America" rag magazine. It worked for the first 100+ years. And if the answer is, the kids won't come, my answer is they're not now and if that doesn't work, why bother? We already have that school in the suburbs. I don't have good answers to any of those things, and unfortunately I'm not sure there ARE good answers. But I'm pretty sure "become a fundamentalist Catholic school" isn't the answer either. Just purely from a demographic standpoint, less American adolescents than ever consider themselves religiously affiliated. Here's a recent study, from AEI, so not exactly some Liberal outpost. www.americansurveycenter.org/research/generation-z-future-of-faith/
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Post by brianfish on Aug 23, 2022 14:26:06 GMT -5
My point is simply, if you can't change location, endowment, facilities, etc to improve your situation, then do something that will. I focus on the ideological. You disagree. That's fine. Now tell me what they can do differently to bolster enrollment, quality enrollment, not quantity, and do it quickly.. How 'bout a Catholic education rooted in the true teachings of the church, not found in today's "America" rag magazine. It worked for the first 100+ years. And if the answer is, the kids won't come, my answer is they're not now and if that doesn't work, why bother? We already have that school in the suburbs. I don't have good answers to any of those things, and unfortunately I'm not sure there ARE good answers. But I'm pretty sure "become a fundamentalist Catholic school" isn't the answer either. Just purely from a demographic standpoint, less American adolescents than ever consider themselves religiously affiliated. Here's a recent study, from AEI, so not exactly some Liberal outpost. www.americansurveycenter.org/research/generation-z-future-of-faith/ Now we're getting somewhere. I don't think becoming a fundamentalist Catholic institution, whatever that is, is the answer either. However, if the school just drops the pretense of being Catholic and grounded in those values, what is there to love and care about? The old farts hanging on to old stories of past glory, blah, blah, blah? Nope. Let it go if that's all there is left. La Salle isn't moving from 20th & Olney, so it needs do to something to get moms to send sons there. So, if you don't have any answers to these problems, why not go back to fundamentals? There's nothing to loose. Otherwise, start cheering for Drexel.
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Post by las71 on Aug 23, 2022 15:01:01 GMT -5
I think blaming the so called politics of the school has nothing to do with game attendance. While enrollment is an issue there are enough students on campus to fill up the East stands. The sweet 16 season and the following season played to large crowds. I don't think students read an article about a professor's views and respond by not attending a basketball game on campus. It's about being competitive. When I attend a sporting event I like to think my team has a chance to win. A fellow alum and I bought season tickets this year after many years of going to 4 or 5 games. The Dunphy hire is the reason for this. We expect better basketball which creates interest. The social media tweet of the Drame twins expressing their excitement for the coming season helps as well. It's been a number of years since I anticipated the start of the season with such interest. Go 'splorers
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Post by GlitterBro #2 on Aug 23, 2022 15:58:14 GMT -5
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MisterD
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Post by MisterD on Aug 23, 2022 16:04:02 GMT -5
If only one could point to an obvious, non-religious factor that drove those gains.
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Post by JoeFedorowicz on Aug 24, 2022 5:52:02 GMT -5
I didn’t see this thread going down the road of ‘things were better and more “Catholic” back in the day’ which, shame on me. I’m not going to participate in that discussion because I find it foolish and shortsighted. I just ask that you don’t make it personal or we’ll have to move the thread. Thanks.
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Post by explorerman on Aug 24, 2022 8:09:39 GMT -5
I didn’t see this thread going down the road of ‘things were better and more “Catholic” back in the day’ which, shame on me. I’m not going to participate in that discussion because I find it foolish and shortsighted. I just ask that you don’t make it personal or we’ll have to move the thread. Thanks. Never underestimate intellectual laziness, Joe
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Post by las71 on Aug 24, 2022 8:23:49 GMT -5
While this question doesn't apply to student interest, does anybody know if season ticket sales have increased?
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Post by GlitterBro #2 on Aug 24, 2022 9:09:48 GMT -5
If only one could point to an obvious, non-religious factor that drove those gains. The article states this. Now, we've said on here before that the decline in Catholic school enrollment negatively impacted La Salle's enrollment, so I think the increased Catholic school attendance, regardless of religious affiliation, should be a positive for La Salle if it sustains for several years.
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Post by GlitterBro #2 on Aug 24, 2022 9:10:09 GMT -5
While this question doesn't apply to student interest, does anybody know if season ticket sales have increased? I've been told it has, but they never publish numbers on this.
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Post by a10champion15 on Aug 24, 2022 10:43:27 GMT -5
LO f'in L
The solution is very simple, improve the product and students will show up. We can obviously do better from an attendance standpoint but this is a little exaggerated.
The Gola boys posted the numbers maybe a week or two ago. La Salle outperformed Duquesne, GW, Fordham and SJU and was fraction behind UMass during the previous season. La Salle is also a smaller school than each of them and despite the product outperformed them.
We can do better but relax. Heard sales are up and hopefully closer to the season they may say by how much (don't count on it though)
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Post by hoopsguest on Aug 24, 2022 11:24:22 GMT -5
A lot of schools do incentive programs like this marketed to student attendance. Some of the bigger schools that also have big time rivalry games will also drive attendance towards things like soccer and field hockey by giving points for attending that puts students at the front of the line for tickets to the big rivalry game for football or basketball
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wistergym
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Post by wistergym on Aug 24, 2022 11:32:41 GMT -5
Just a small tangential factoid:
What role does affinity, spirit and identity play in the mix?
LaSalle High School, an all male student body, has for over six decades maintained a program of athletic excellence, participation and academic achievement.
For decades the bond between LCHS and LaSalle College (Uni) was a steady feeder network for LaSallians, with as many as a half to a quarter of the students from LCHS moving over to the College(uni).
This year from the class of about 200, the numbers of graduates enrolling in LSU === ZERO. These young men are taking their athletic excellence, participation and academic achievement to some other college.
Could mean nothing---may mean something.
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Post by JoeFedorowicz on Aug 24, 2022 12:35:19 GMT -5
This year from the class of about 200, the numbers of graduates enrolling in LSU === ZERO. These young men are taking their athletic excellence, participation and academic achievement to some other college. Could mean nothing---may mean something. I was one of these people, but when I left La Salle High School (2004) the tuition was $8600. It is now $25,500. While I attended with a lot of kids from wealthy families, it was not a requirement at that time. Today, for kids that were firmly middle class like me (I don't know what the financial aid is like there anymore, but I did not qualify at the time), $25,500 is out of reach for high school. Why do I bring this up? Because these kids are going to Villanova or the Ivies or any state school they want because money is less of an issue. Generally, if you were a good student at La Salle High, you'd get money at La Salle U and it would be easy to attend there. That is likely still the case, but the high school's demographics have changed.
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