If you’re a college student in Mississippi, the cost of your education went up last week. Again.
The Institutions for Higher Learning, approved a 4 percent average increase in tuition in their meeting Thursday for the 2019 school year for the state’s eight public universities. This comes a year after students were hit with a 6.6 percent average tuition hike. It was even greater at our two local universities: MUW’s tuition in 2018 spiked by 9.1 percent; Mississippi State’s tuition went up 6.9 percent.
That means MSU students will pay $332 more in tuition next year than they did in the recently-completed school year. MUW students will see a $321 increase.
In Mississippi, there are three things you may rely on: Death, tax cuts and tuition increases.
It used to be that state funds provided two-thirds of the cost of a college education, a funding mechanism that made access to college affordable for our students.
But over the past 10 years, as state funding cuts followed ill-advised tax cuts, tuition has gone up eight times. Today, two-thirds of our universities’ funding comes from tuition, the exact opposite ratio of a decade ago.
According to a study by the Hechinger Report, state funding for each student enrolled full-time in Mississippi universities have decreased by nearly 24 percent compared to pre-recession numbers.
The cost of obtaining a college education in Mississippi has never been higher.
That’s likely to be true next year and the year after that, too, and will continue as long as the tax-cutting fever in Jackson subsides.
To be fair, the folks in Jackson are not picking on college kids. They’ve spread the under-funding misery throughout our kids’ educational cycle. K-12 funding continues to lag far below the formula used to determine what it would take to provide a child an “adequate” education. There has been no progress at all on that front, either.
Aside from the impact under-funding education has on students, their families and the community, the most maddening aspect of this subject is that every single legislator will tell you, with great conviction, that education is their No. 1 priority.
But actions speak far louder than words.
There is no evidence that education is much of a priority in Jackson at all.
The state, through its elected officials, continue to fail to meet its obligation to educate our children and the implications will have far-reaching effects.
Over the past four years, our state has had a loss of 35,000 residents which is like the entire city of Tupelo picking up and leaving the state. No other state is losing population at that rate.
Our elected leaders are mystified as to why folks are leaving.
But it’s not a mystery to anyone else.
If a state fails its children, consistently and unapologetically over the course of a decade or more, it’s probably a pretty good time to hit the road.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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