Vanderbilt University. Photo: Wiki Commons.

As campuses across the country reopen this Fall, the familiar rhythms of college life are returning. Freshmen are moving into dorms, quads are buzzing with activity, and families are sending their children off with hope and excitement.

This season of beginnings also coincides with the Jewish High Holy Days: a time of reflection, renewal, and community. For many Jewish families, the symbolism feels especially poignant this year.

Yet, beneath the surface of move-in day photos and holiday gatherings, something fundamental has shifted. This Fall marks a turning point. Jewish students are making different choices about where to study, and those choices are reshaping the very map of Jewish campus life.

For generations, ambitious Jewish families knew the path forward: aim for Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Yale — the elite colleges and universities of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. These schools were not just prestigious academic institutions. They were symbols of Jewish ascent in America, places where a community once shut out by quotas had built vibrant campus lives and become vital to the intellectual and cultural fabric of higher education.

That roadmap is now breaking down. Across Jewish day schools, synagogue youth groups, and Jewish and Zionist family dinner tables, a profound debate is unfolding. Parents and students are asking a new question: Should you still chase the Ivy League dream, hoping to carve out a space for Jewish identity on campuses increasingly hostile to open expression and Israel?

Or should you go where you can thrive, to universities that welcome you as a student and as a Jew, where you can build community and simply live without fear or exhaustion?

This is no longer an abstract conversation. It is being decided right now, as families fill out college applications and students begin their first weeks of classes.

The Atlantic recently captured this shift, documenting how Jewish students are leaving elite northeastern schools and heading south. Schools like Vanderbilt, Tulane, Emory, and the University of Florida are emerging as destinations of choice.

Vanderbilt’s Jewish population has grown significantly, with the school now serving more than 1,000 Jewish students, about 15% of undergraduates. Clemson’s Hillel has quadrupled in size. The University of Florida has seen a 50 percent surge in Jewish student participation since 2021. Southern Methodist University now appears to have more Jewish undergraduates than Harvard, per data from Hillel International.

Meanwhile, numbers at the other end of the pipeline tell an equally stark story.

Hillel International reports that the Jewish populations at Harvard, Columbia, Penn, and Cornell have declined in recent years. At Ramaz, a Modern Orthodox high school in New York, more than a dozen graduates would typically head to Columbia each year. This past year, it sent none.

These are not symbolic shifts. They represent a realignment of where Jewish families believe their children can be safe, flourish, and belong.

From Cultural Drift to Exodus

This transformation didn’t happen overnight. Even before the upheavals of the past two years, Jewish families were beginning to quietly reconsider the Ivies. In earlier research, I documented how many southern universities maintained a healthier civic culture than their northern counterparts: more ideologically diverse, less polarized, and more willing to foster real debate.

At the time, my argument was cultural rather than existential. Families weren’t worried about their children’s physical safety. They were simply looking for campuses where their kids could engage with ideas and people without suffocating monoculture. I warned that if elite northern schools failed to protect this balance, families would start looking elsewhere.

The events of October 7, 2023, and the wave of anti-Israel protests that followed, did not create this trend — but they dramatically accelerated it. At Cornell that October, a student posted death threats against Jewish students online. At Cooper Union, Jewish students locked themselves in the library while protesters pounded on the doors. What was once a quiet drift has become a visible exodus.

This year, Hillel’s survey of 427 Jewish parents conducted in March 2024 found that almost two-thirds had eliminated at least one college from their child’s list because of antisemitism concerns. Families are no longer only asking, “Will my child get in?” They are now asking, “Will my child be safe, welcomed, and able to thrive?”

The Experience on the Ground

The reasons for this shift are stark.

An ADL and Hillel International survey found that 83 percent of Jewish students have experienced or witnessed antisemitism since October 7, 2023. Two-thirds of Jewish students lack confidence in their university’s ability to prevent antisemitic incidents, and only about half feel comfortable with others on campus knowing their Jewish identity.

The American Jewish Committee’s 2024 State of Antisemitism report showed that 43 percent of Jewish students avoided expressing their views about Israel on campus or to classmates because of fears of antisemitism. Nearly one-third of Jewish students said they have felt uncomfortable or unsafe at a campus event because of their Jewish identity. Many now hide visible signs of Jewish identity — like Stars of David or Hebrew lettering — to avoid confrontation.

These numbers confirm the experience that many students have been living for months: Jewish identity is no longer neutral on many elite campuses. Being openly Jewish, or simply participating in Jewish communal life, now carries political baggage — and risk.

FIRE’s free-expression survey captures the chilling effect: before October 7, 13 percent of Jewish Ivy League students reported self-censoring multiple times a week. After October 7, that number spiked to 35 percent. Even after tensions eased, it settled at 19 percent, well above historical norms.

The message is unmistakable: Jewish students are not just encountering incidents of hostility. They are systematically adjusting how they speak, behave, and even appear in public. For many families, that is intolerable.

Southern Schools as Havens

The southern campuses now attracting Jewish students are not perfect, but they are different. They maintain a measure of ideological pluralism that has largely vanished at northern elite schools.

Administrators at universities like Vanderbilt and Washington University in St. Louis act quickly to enforce clear standards of conduct.

When protesters at WashU set up an encampment in April 2024, police arrested over 100 people, including 23 students who were immediately suspended.

Vanderbilt’s leadership immediately suspended 27 students who occupied the chancellor’s office in March 2024, removing them from campus and making clear that disrupting university operations would have consequences.

These schools are also actively investing in Jewish life. Tulane’s undergraduate Jewish population now hovers around 30 percent, one of the highest in the country. Vanderbilt has added Hillel staff to meet the surge of prospective students. Kosher dining halls, Jewish studies programs, and strong Chabad houses signal that Jewish life is valued, not merely tolerated.

For students, this matters deeply. At these schools, they can attend Shabbat dinners without feeling like it’s a political statement. They can wear a kippah or a Star of David without worrying about being targeted. They can speak openly about Israel without calculating the social cost. They can simply be students.

This migration represents more than individual choices about college. It’s a verdict on what elite institutions have become and a bet on where excellence will emerge next. Jewish families aren’t just choosing different schools; they’re redrawing the map of American higher education itself.

But what does this mean for the universities being left behind? And can Jewish institutions rise to meet this moment of crisis and opportunity?

In Part 2, I examine how elite universities are responding to the exodus, why their efforts fall short, and what this historic realignment means for the future of both Jewish life and American higher education.