I'm also from a small southern college town and the housing market has been absolutely absurd for the past decade or so. It's always seemed like football fans looking for vacation homes and retirees were buoying it.
While 13 years old and resulting from a robbery he was intimidated into. Life without possibility at parole is hardly proportional to that, not to mention the extended period of inhuman solitary confinement.
I'm not too sure about your guess that most Americans can afford even a one time payment of a couple thousand dollars. That seems to way underestimate how impoverished many families are. To your note about GPA being easy to game, that's definitely true. The real issue is that families with means will likely always be able to game the system in some way. Testing and college admission coaches can be hired, opportunities can be acquired through family/connections, etc. I think colleges are struggling to reduce game-able metrics (like dropping the SAT), but it really feels like an almost intractable problem.
As a resident, I think Nashville would be a really interesting choice. Nashville only recently approved a big transit plan though and it would destroy commute times in the city if the HQ was built here before the new transit system was completed. Traffic is already at unacceptable levels as is.