Not only is UDL huge, but the University of West Georgia was killing it on the debate circuit 10 years ago and they are a small, shitty university in Carrollton, GA with just enough money to fly their team where they needed.

At the high school level I get the 'elite' argument (from the TOC perspective - unless you're in NY, IL, GA, CA, or TX, you probably only have 1 TOC qualifying tournament within driving distance) but, as you stated, you don't HAVE to play that game - let the rich private schools fly their kids across the country every weekend while the poorer schools just go to local tournaments in their hand-me-down school bus driven by the coach.