Mississippi colleges face high dropout rate
By By Fredie Carmichael / staff writer
October 19, 2004
CHOCTAW A top official at Jackson State University was surprised Monday to learn that Mississippi does a good job recruiting college students but then loses many of them after their freshman year.
Roy DeBerry, vice president for economic development and governmental affairs at JSU, said Mississippi has a student retention problem "and I think that clearly has to be looked at."
DeBerry and other higher education officials learned that Mississippi has one of the largest college dropout rates in the nation during a talk by Mark Musick, president of the Southern Region Education Board.
Musick was a featured speaker at an afternoon session of the three-day Mississippi Association of Colleges conference here at the Pearl River Resort.
Conference agenda
This year's conference has focused on the role that higher education including all public and private universities and community colleges plays in recruiting business and industry to Mississippi.
DeBerry was one of more than 150 college officials attending the MAC conference, which is co-hosted this year by Meridian Community College and East Central Community College.
The conference concludes today at noon.
MCC President Scott Elliott said he was pleased with the first two days of the conference.
During the afternoon session, Musick quoted statistics from the 2000 Census. Then he challenged higher education leaders to form a "smarter mixture of strategies" to eliminate college dropouts.
Mississippi's potential
Musick said Mississippi has potential because it is a relatively young population.
And, he said, no state in the South has a larger percentage of its students who are between the ages of 18 and 24. The problem, though, is that Mississippi has one of the smallest percentage of students 25-34.
DeBerry is one college official who said he'd like that trend to change. And, he said, one of the most important places to begin is in the retention of college freshman.
DeBerry said he hopes to continue meeting with other college officials at the conference to develop strategies that would solve the problem.
