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House committee passes bill expanding college financial aid to adult, part-time students

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House committee passes bill expanding college financial aid to adult, part-time students

The House Colleges and Universities Committee advanced a bill Wednesday to increase award amounts and expand eligibility to more under the state’s largest college financial aid program.

Under House Bill 994, adult, part-time and low-income college students would be able to the Mississippi Resident Tuition Assistance Grant. All told, an estimated 37,000 more Mississippians, many who don’t receive any form of state financial aid for college, would be eligible for MTAG.

Depending on a student’s income and academic year, the bill would increase MTAG award amounts to a maximum of $2,000. This would be the first time the has increased MTAG awards since the program was created in the 1990s to benefit middle-class Mississippians who aren’t eligible for the federal Pell Grant.

“It it up to every Mississippian out there,” said House Chair Donnie Scoggin, R-Ellisville, the bill sponsor. “From the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich, there is some benefit.”

Though the bill has broad , Scoggin said it faces a major hurdle: The cost. To fully fund the program, lawmakers would need to greenlight upwards of $30 million in additional spending. Last year, Mississippi spent just under $10 million on MTAG.

But Scoggin is hoping to convince lawmakers to see the changes as an investment in Mississippi’s workforce. He said it doesn’t matter how much the state of Mississippi spends on workforce development programs if potential students can’t afford to attend.

“My argument would be, very simply: Education is the future,” Scoggin said. “We’ve got to do something to people go to college.”

During the committee meeting, Scoggin told members the bill is supported by community colleges and universities whose disagreement last year was one reason his proposal failed last session. That plan also sought to overhaul the Higher Education Legislative Plan for Needy Students, or HELP, grant.

The Mississippi Economic Council is also supporting this bill, which Scoggin worked on closely with the Office of Student Financial Aid and its director, Jennfier Rogers. After the committee meeting, multiple lawmakers came up to Rogers to tell her they supported the bill.

Rogers said that she worked on the proposal with a to set higher MTAG award amounts without increasing the overall cost of the program too much. Though it’s hard to say if the increased award amounts would be enough to affect student behavior, Rogers said studies have shown increasing grant aid has a positive impact on college graduation rates.

“I wish we could increase them more,” she said. “I think the award amounts need to be larger. But this is a reasonable first step.”

MTAG has lost significant buying power since it was created in 1995.

That year, the award amounts under MTAG for freshmen and sophomores covered roughly 10% of the average four-year, in-state tuition, room and board, and 20% for juniors and seniors, according to an analysis of federal data. In fall 2021, MTAG covered 2% of tuition, room and board for freshmen and sophomores, and 5% for juniors and seniors.

Scoggin said he doesn’t know yet where the money would from to fund the bill, and that it will face competition from other initiatives.

“I think this is a priority, but someone else may think roads and bridges are a priority or someone else may think expanding Medicaid is a priority,” he said.

Scoggin said need to balance tax cuts with programs that can help Mississippians take personal responsibility.

“We’re to limit the government, but in doing that, we’re still trying to get people into that workforce development,” he said.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1875

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-02 07:00:00

Nov. 2, 1875

Pictured here are U.S. Sen. Hiram Revels of Mississippi, left, with six Black members of the U.S. House, Ben J.S. Turner of Alabama, Josiah T. Walls of Florida, Jefferson H. Long of Georgia, and Robert C. De Large, Joseph H. Rainy and R. Brown Elliot, all of South Carolina. Credit: Library of

The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from , resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the

A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state. 

Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton. 

The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan. 

John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: “It was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.” 

A federal grand jury concluded: “Fraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today’s NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi

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mississippitoday.org – Mary Margaret White – 2024-11-01 12:34:00

High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.

In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Here at we act as watchdogs, holding those in power accountable, and as storytellers, giving a platform to voices that have been ignored for too long. And we’re committed to keeping our stories for everyone because information should be accessible when it’s needed most.

Why NewsMatch and Why Now?

This year’s NewsMatch campaign runs from November 1 through December 31, giving us a special to make each dollar you give go even further. Through matching funds provided by local foundations like the Maddox Foundation, and national funders like the MacArthur Foundation, the Rural Partner Fund and the Hewlett Foundation, your gift will be matched dollar for dollar up to $1,000. Plus, if 100 new donors join us, we’ll unlock an additional $2,000 in , bringing us even closer to our goal. Boiled down: your donation goes four times as far.

Every dollar raised strengthens our ability to serve you with fact-based journalism on issues that impact your everyday —whether it’s covering local election issues or reporting on decisions affecting schools, safety and economic growth in Mississippi. Your support makes it possible for us to stay rooted in the community, offering nuanced perspectives that help Mississippians understand and engage with what’s happening around them.

Special Event: “Freedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact”

As part of the campaign, we’re excited to host a special virtual , “Freedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact.” Join Deep South Today newsrooms Mississippi and Verite News, along with national experts on press freedom, for an in-depth discussion on the unique challenges facing journalists in the Deep South. This one-hour session will explore the critical role local newsrooms play in holding power accountable, highlighting recent restrictions on press freedom such as Louisiana’s “25- law,” which affects journalists’ ability to report vital .

We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!

How You Can Help

Make Your Gift Today

Together, let’s ensure Mississippi has the robust, independent journalism it needs to thrive. Your support fuels our ability to expose the truth, elevate marginalized stories and build a more informed Mississippi.

Thank you for believing in the power of journalism to strengthen the communities we love—not only during election season but year-round. With your help, we’ll keep Mississippi informed, engaged and connected for generations to .

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Hinds County loses fight over control of jail

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mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-11-01 12:57:00

The sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.   

Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, a failure to protect detainees from harm. 

However, the appeals court called the new injunction “overly broad” in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.

The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be

The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as “federal intrusion into RDC’s budget” – especially if the receivership has no end date. 

Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion. 

In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which people facing trial. 

“But the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,” the appeals court wrote.  

This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022. 

The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in

The county had a to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old and use of force. 

Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.

But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff. 

The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference. 

Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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