Oregon had a spike in out of state students (mainly California) during the early 2000s, and much of that was due to the Joey Heisman campaign.

It is just one part of a complex larger picture. One thing about public universities that has been a big deal lately is that they have been promoted as a good option to sit out the economic downturn. Go to school, or back to school, get your degree and at the same time when you get out the economic should be stronger when looking for work. And as such you are also economically in the same boat as you would be if went to school during a good economic time (unless tuition is increased a lot, see below about that and OSU).

Plus OSU has done a good job at working with reserves and working with the state in funding received per student and hasn’t had to jack up tuition like other schools. These are just a couple examples of how complex a situation this is and in my opinion these are also much more important components of OSU’s success.

BUT, yes the national sports exposure very much helps the cause for the name is out there and as such the seeds of curiosity are planted within the minds of people who might not have considered going to OSU. Say you have a student looking at the NW schools and maybe OSU wasn’t on the radar before, but then it is hey wow I saw that basketball game with the President’s brother in-law as coach, the team looked good, and the crowd sounded loud and fun. So maybe that would be a good choice, oh and hey they haven’t raised tuition recently, wow this looks to be a good and fun school! This is a little exaggerated of course, but I think it happens at some level.

I will say though it most likely affects people in the NW and California much more than around the country, but I could be wrong that nation wide applicants are up dramatically too (would be interesting to see some numbers there).