California is a net exporter of incoming college freshman. There are not enough schools and not enough space in the ones that there are in Cali. This is why Notre Dame likes to play football there and have a satellite campus in California. Its likely a minor factor in the invitation to invite SC and UCLA since the midwest is suffering population loss. Out of state tuition pays the bills. The B1G also has alums there trying to escape that god awful weather that could hopefully donate a little more.
Yes California is a major exporter. But even if you remove the top 3 for CU after instate (Cali 11%, Illinois 3%, Texas 3%) we don’t get students from B12 states at all.
On UCLA, could be a different story. Universities post data about who they see as their peers for benchmarking. The B1G schools tend to list UCLA as a peer. That may have played some factor in it (they fit) in addition to the media market.
CU posts this data. Here’s what it says.
https://www.colorado.edu/oda/instit...-data/peer-comparisons/cdhe-peer-institutions
Colorado’s peers:
Pac-12: 5 (UA, Cal, UCLA, Oregon, UW)
Big Ten: 12 (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, MSU, Minnesota, OSU, PSU, Purdue, Rutgers, Wisconsin)
ACC: 4 (GaTech, UNC, Virginia, Pitt)
SEC: 4 (Florida, Missouri, Texas, TAMU)
B12: 2 (Kansas, ISU)
Speaks for itself. All of the B12 talk makes us look dumb. We just don’t see them at our level.
What’s also interesting is do other schools see CU as a peer?
I looked around. Some B1G list Colorado as a peer (Indiana, Nebraska). Some list different groups like Iowa (AAU and then another set). Some are not found (Wisconsin).
Tbh, not as many B1G list CU as I would have imagined. I wonder if there’s a backstory here. The university sees itself as a B1G school (clearly). It’s not returned nearly as much as UW (which lists us as a peer) or Cal. So it’s not that they won’t list us if we’re not in the B1G. Do we not know how to make friends?
Idk if anyone knows what the history is w/ Colorado and the B1G but there’s something off about it.
As for other conferences, we’re not on B12 lists and they’re not on ours.
There’s a case to be made we’re thoroughly a P12 school and we should be good with that. They list us, we list them.
Not saying this has any bearing on realignment but I went down the rabbit hole and brought all of you with me.