TV show highlights UI students

By Anthony Kuipers, Moskow-Pullman Daily News I August 27, 2022

A television show aimed at helping high school students decide where to go to college made a stop in Vandal country this week.

The University of Idaho will be highlighted on “The College Tour,” which will air on Amazon Prime, Tubi and other platforms.

Host and co-creator Alex Boylan said each episode of the show tells the story of a different higher education institution through the eyes of its students.

“So these are real students — real stories,” he said.

Boylan and his crew stood on the lawn in front of the UI Administration Building on Friday to film his introductions to each Vandal student highlighted in the episode.

“UI is awesome,” he told the Daily News. “There’s an energy on this campus that is just palpable and palpable in a very positive, friendly way and the student stories that we tell are awesome. Our crew has been having a blast all week long.”

Boylan, who has worked in television since winning CBS’s Amazing Race in 2002, said “The College Tour” was inspired by his niece, who couldn’t figure out where to go to college and couldn’t afford to take many tours of schools.

“She’s like 99.9% of high school students out there,” he said. “They don’t have the money to travel all around the country.”

After watching “The College Tour” episode on Arizona State University, she found out that her employer, Starbucks, offered scholarships to ASU. Boylan said his niece is now a Sun Devil thanks to a full-ride scholarship.

Boylan hopes his show will help other high school students in the same position as his niece. He said it is a way for current college students to speak indirectly to high school audiences.

“What a pleasure it is to bring these campuses to life and to share that information with the millions of high schoolers out there to help them find the right place,” he said.

Boylan said that by the end of the year, “The College Tour” will have highlighted 100 institutions. Other Northwest schools include the University of Oregon, the University of Montana and the University of Puget Sound.

The other goal of the show, he said, is to celebrate the importance of higher education in America.

“It’s a world out there that has not been lifted up to the point on a national and international level like we are doing with ‘The College Tour,’ ” he said.

There is no date set for the airing of the UI episode, but Boylan said it will be ready later this year. For more information, visit thecollegetour.com.