I have a young relative who was admitted to Clemson for next year. She already decided not to go due to the lack of scholarship. She’s leaving NY and heading south because of the wokeness there. When she tells people she didn’t even apply to any NY or Ivy league schools because she wants to be in a free state, they get offended.
When NY state offered “free tuition”, it was actually a form of indentured servitude: You had to remain in the state for one year for each year’s tuition you’d received. The problem is (and this was why young people were originally leaving) there is no opportunity there; you’d spend four+ years working a McJob while your skills in your field atrophied.
Here in neighboring NJ it isn’t much better; there is a mass exodus not just of Americans, but young Americans in particular. If they go away to college, they rarely return.