Abandon Ship!

Everyone is leaving Ohio. The majority of the top graduating high school students will not be attending Ohio state colleges – most of them will be gaining their education from out-of-state colleges. 

All Ohio state colleges are worried, especially Ohio’s biggest college Ohio State University. Their anxiety is for good reason. 

"For years the state of Ohio has been one of the large exporters of students. We export more kids than we import," Jefferson Blackburn-Smith, Ohio State University's senior associate director of undergraduate admissions, said recently.

There’s a lot of speculation for why kids are leaving Ohio. Most analysts are pointing to financial reasons. Colleges, such as OSU, are simply too expensive for kids. 

I can’t really say why most kids from Ohio aren’t going to OSU because I am neither an OSU student nor a resident of Ohio. 

With that said, I know what sort of feeling I get when someone asks me about Ohio, and it’s not a good one. When someone says New York, I think amazing architecture, New York Yankees, and a fast paced environment; when someone says California I think beautiful sunny days and beautiful people; when someone says Massachusetts, I think Red Sox, clean city streets and lots white people. But when someone says Ohio, I think “blah.” I think this is one of the reasons why kids don’t want to stay there, they’re sick of “blah.”

Ohio shouldn’t feel too bad though. When I think of New Jersey, I think of an armpit.