Yeah, there has to be something that can be done to overcome the weird campus pride gap between UH and LSU, for example. The latter of those two is a school that sucks in a place that sucks, and yet for some reason their alums are obsessed with it.
I don’t interact at all with anyone with this mindset. With personal experience can you say that has happened? Maybe I’m blinded by my own experience with my friends and my own kids but there’s no embarrassment at all, the kids simply wanted to either get out of Houston, or were accepted at better schools.
Goodness knows I’d have been happier, and wealthier, if my kids went to UH.
I can’t help but wonder if there’s not a way to make substantial inroads in Louisiana and Mississippi with the kids who don’t have good enough grades to go somewhere actually-elite but still want to go to school in a major city? We’d be the best school available to kids in those states who wanted to go to a large public school in a major city and didn’t get into UT-Austin or Georgia Tech. I suspect that the the City of Houston is considered much more desirable there, too.
Rich kids send their kids to Ivy Leagues. And if it isn’t Ivy Leagues, its a small, private, liberal arts college where they can assimilate with other kids of the same socioeconomic status
The “old money” public universities are schools like Ole Miss where the greek life kids all come from money
I agree, but there’s not enough alumni support for a robust greek life, and the most important aspect of greek life, housing, exists in a mediocre apartment complex
Removing fraternity houses out of S. McGregor was one of the biggest mistakes in UH history
The houses in south macgregor were private residences leased to fraternities so it was difficult to cultivate a true Greek row because it depended entirely on the individual landlords.
UH could have easily leased land and houses to fraternities on the north side of the bayou and did to us tekes until the property flooded and the new townhomes were built.
It’s a travesty that the easiest method to garner school spirit by promoting the Greek system was squandered.