Some of our state legislators have recently been debating the expense and logic of a poor state like Mississippi funding and maintaining eight public universities. Well, nobody asked me, but I have the solution – close or consolidate all but three: one in the south (USM), one in the middle (Jackson State), and one in the north (Ole State). Let’s look at how we got into this predicament and why many lawmakers consider the subject “kryptonite.”
Before I get into the details of my “modest proposal,” I suspect that it will be received in some circles with the same derision that an essay of the same name (“A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick,” by Jonathan Swift, 1729) was received. Of course, he suggested that poor people in Ireland could ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food to the elite. I’m not proposing anything so radical – only a better way to educate our students.
I’ll be the first one to tell you that my idea isn’t realistic or even feasible – I’m just a provocateur. Even the gentleman who introduced the most recent relevant bill in the last session of the legislature, (Senate Bill 2726 proposing to close three universities by 2026) which was dead on arrival (DOA), said that his purpose was only to “start a conversation.” But think about it. The long-time elephant in Mississippi’s educational classroom has been taxpayer support of so many public universities, several of which are suffering from declining enrollment and are underwater financially. The above proposed solution to an existential problem does make sense on historic, geographic, demographic, political, and economic levels. Let’s briefly examine all five. Disclaimer - between us, my wife and I hold five degrees from USM.
Every university in Mississippi has a rich history, especially in the eyes of its alumni and alumnae. The oldest public university in the state is the University of Mississippi, founded in 1848, followed by Alcorn State (1871), Jackson State (1877), Mississippi State (1878), Mississippi State University for Women (1884, Wynbridge State University of Mississippi, 2023?), Southern Miss (1924), Delta State (1924) and Mississippi Valley State (1950) The oldest extant institution of higher learning in the state is Mississippi College, “a Christian University,” founded in 1827. The first college in Mississippi was Jefferson College at Natchez, which was chartered in 1802 and is considered the birthplace of Mississippi’s statehood in 1817.
Mississippi State and Alcorn State are “land-grant universities, created under the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862, which allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in the United States from sales of federally owned land, often obtained from Native American tribes through treaty, cession, or seizure. Alcorn is the first black land-grant university in America.
The obvious questions are, “How did we end up with so many universities and why are the two major ones located in the northern part of the state? The answers are simple: regionalism, segregation, and politics. Discounting the French and Spanish settlements along the coast, Mississippi, as part of the old Mississippi Territory, was first settled heavily along the Mississippi River in the Natchez, Port Gibson and Rodney areas. Cotton was king and dependent upon slavery. Gradually, leading up to the War Between the States, political and economic power slowly shifted north to the delta area. With this power concentrated in the northern part of the state, it’s not surprising that our two major universities are located only 103 miles apart.
This power was maintained in the north by effectively manipulating electoral districts. In 1812, Massachusetts governor, Elbridge Gerry, redrew his state’s electoral districts for the benefit of his own party. The shape of one district resembled that of a mythological salamander, a winged amphibian, prompting the creation of the term, “gerrymander,” to describe the practice. However, what might have made sense 150 years ago doesn’t necessarily make sense now. I’m no political scientist, and I was out of the state in the Navy for almost 40 years, but my feeling is that the political base of the state, as well as the population center, has now shifted from the north to south along the Highway 80 corridor and beyond to the Gulf Coast. I see this as a major justification for a more equitable distribution of educational resources.
The sad fact is that all three of our Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were founded to reduce pressure to integrate the state’s other white universities. This was as nationwide efforts to end legal segregation of public schools was increasing. These schools were then underfunded, under-resourced, and under-appreciated. It’s the height of irony that these three universities are now the prime candidates for closure or consolidation. Most people don’t know that Coahoma Community College in Clarksdale is also considered an HBCU.
Delta State and the former MSUW are victims of geographic location and identity issues, respectively. It’s only over an hour’s travel from Cleveland to either Oxford or Starkville and, faced with dwindling student enrollment, there’s a small population base to work with, and it’s getting smaller. The “W,” on the other hand, which has the highest graduation rate of all the public universities in Mississippi (77%), has been embroiled in a name change controversy lately and, in my opinion, should be left alone. According to recent statistics (2022) their enrollment was 2339, and of these 23% were men. But, being so close to Mississippi State, they naturally come up in any conversation regarding closure or consolidation.
If it was decided to close five and keep three, one of the first issues to be settled would be to decide what main campus to retain in the north. We’d let the lawyers and the engineers work that out. Next, we’d have to determine the names of the resultant universities. Absorbing Mississippi Valley and Alcorn into Jackson State would be easy – since both schools have “State” in the names, just continue to call the new, super school “Jackson State” and all bases are covered. It’s in the north where the situation gets more complicated. Here’s what I would do. If you were to merge Mississippi State, Ole Miss, and Delta State, why not call the new, combined institution, wherever it ends up, “Ole State?” The problem is how do you include the “W” which is an issue of utmost importance to its many graduates. Maybe they would agree to call the new school, “Olew State,” which includes the “W” and sounds the same - like some of the word distortions I see on personalized automobile license plates. Also – a cautionary tale - as vice presidential candidate J. D. Vance has recently found out, you anger a large constituency of women at your own peril.
But no good deed goes unpunished. The devil is in the details, and I can just imagine the problems. First, do we really want politicians tinkering with the university education system? Remember what happened when Governor Theodore Bilbo fired three college presidents (Ole Miss, Miss State, and MSCW) and about fifty-three faculty members in 1928? His actions resulted in several accrediting agencies withdrawing accreditation from all Mississippi institutions of higher learning for two years.
I do have some knowledge of how colleges function, having taught for over twenty years at Pearl River Community College (sociology) William Carey University (psychology), Southern Miss (Adjunct, English), and out of state at Barrington College in Rhode Island (English) and San Diego Bible College (History). I was always blessed with strong administrators who shielded me from the realities of keeping the doors open.
And then, there’s the issue of university loyalty. Most people’s loyalty goes in three directions: God (hopefully), family, and their school. Oddly enough, some people are also loyal to schools they never attended – there can’t be that many Alabama graduates driving around Hattiesburg. We’ll see how long that lasts after the retirement of Nick Saban. On a more personal note, if I were a graduate of a Mississippi HBCU, and some politician made a serious effort to consolidate or put my school on the fiscal chopping block, I would be a willing participant in whatever lawsuit, mass demonstration, economic boycott, petition writing, sit in, or recall election that would be sure to follow.
Regarding such loyalty to your school, I’ve seen some strange things. When I was the junior Protestant chaplain at the Naval Academy in Annapolis in the early 1970s, I saw college rivalry carried to the extreme. Weeks before the annual Army-Navy game, the midshipmen collected one dollar each from all 3,000 students for a total of $3,000. They then went out and bought a new MGB convertible roadster from the dealership in town. On the night before the big game, a select group of midshipmen went to the campus home of the Army liaison officer, who owned a new MGB, and beat the car to smithereens with sledgehammers. They then left the $3,000, which more than covered the cost of a new car, in his mailbox. As you can imagine, it caused quite a stink, but no one was ever caught.
And then, what do you do about the mascots, the “Land Sharks,” the “Delta Devils,” the “Statesmen” (aka the “Fighting Okra”), and “Ody the owl?” What about the bands? – the “Sounds of Dyn-o-mite,” the “Sonic Boom of the South,” the “Mean Green Marching Machine.” Will we never again see the “Prancing J-Settes” or the “Satin Dolls.” No more heavy-duty “Jackettes?” It boggles the mind. Ole State would have so many former school colors represented that they would have to go back to the drawing board. It strikes me that they are still in search of a mascot since the demise of Colonel Reb; maybe they could be the “Rainbow Warriors,” although the University of Hawaii has claimed that sobriquet.
I can visualize several advantages of my 8 - 5 scheme, not the least would be the huge savings in salaries, benefits, upkeep, utilities, and other expenses attendant to running an institution like a university. The legislative gentleman estimated that his Senate Bill 2726 would save up to $80 million per year if passed. Such savings, obviously, would be the legislature’s primary focus in approving any plan that would alter the current status quo. There would also be more opportunity to update and concentrate majors, making the state more agile in adjusting to the rapidly changing demands of technology and industry in the 21st century. Hopefully, over time, each of the three universities would acquire the same “cachet,” and all be on equal footing in terms of prestige, funding, and endowment.
There would also be advantages outside the classroom. For example, with increased enrollment, Ole State would now be on a level athletic playing field when it lines up against the likes of LSU, Alabama, Texas, etc. in terms of budget, recruiting, and the ability to build competitive facilities. We would go from being among the smallest schools in the Southeastern Conference to among the largest. Such a reallocation of funds to fewer universities would also positively affect extracurricular activities at Jackson State and USM.
Finally, I believe such a restructuring of our universities would benefit our community college system, which is the “crown jewel” of Mississippi education. Each community college would become even more identified with the major university in its area, to the mutual advantage of both. When I was teaching at Pearl River, I remember seeing a study from Ole Miss that compared the GPAs (Grade Point Average) of students who went to Ole Miss for all four years with those who only came after graduating from a two-year Mississippi community college. The community college students had the higher GPA. This was only a brief “snapshot” of one year, but it showed the quality of a community college education.
The prudent thing to do would be to shut down five universities completely, thereby accomplishing a meaningful savings. But that would cause economic and social chaos. Affected towns would dry up; creeks would run backwards; cats would play with dogs; lions would lie down with lambs; and blood would run in the streets. We should probably follow the example of adjacent states like Alabama and Louisiana and reorganize each existing university as a branch of a statewide system, which would give us more control over administrative costs, redundant academic majors, etc. The question is, “Would that accrue any real savings?” Unfortunately, the answer is probably “No.” It’s a conundrum, an enigma, a Gordians’ knot to be untied farther down the road. We are paying for the sins of our forefathers. So, who will be the first to step up and volunteer to consolidate or close their beloved university? The sound of silence is deafening.
Light a candle for me.
—
Benny Hornsby of Oak Grove is a retired U.S. Navy captain. Visit his website, bennyhornsby.com, or email him: villefranche60@yahoo.com.
