Mississippi Today
‘Easy to just write us off’: Rural students’ options shrink as colleges slash majors
This story was co-published with Open Campus, The Hechinger Report, and The Washington Post
CLEVELAND, Miss. — With no car and a toddler, Shamya Jones enrolled this fall at the four-year university in her small town in Mississippi — Delta State University.
She planned to major in digital media arts, but before she could start, the college eliminated that major, along with 20 other degree programs including history, English, chemistry and music.
“They’re cutting off so much, and teachers [are] leaving,” Jones said. The cuts “take away from us, our education.”
Across the country, rural students like Jones are feeling short-changed and frustrated.
Many of the comparatively few universities that serve rural students are eliminating large numbers of programs and majors, blaming plummeting enrollment and resulting financial crises. Nationwide, college enrollment has declined by 2 million students, or 10 percent, in the 10 years ending in 2022, hitting rural schools particularly hard. An increasing number of rural private, nonprofit colleges are not only cutting majors, but closing altogether.
“We are asking rural folks to accept a set of options that folks in cities and suburbs would never accept,” said Andrew Koricich, a professor of higher education at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. “It’s almost like, ‘Well, this is what you get to learn, and this is how you get to learn it. And if you don’t like it, you can move.’ ”
For many rural students, there are already few places to go. About 13 million people live in higher education “deserts,” the American Council on Education estimates, mostly in the Midwest and Great Plains, where the nearest university is beyond a reasonable commute away.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen private, nonprofit universities and colleges that are in rural areas or serve large proportions of rural students have closed since 2020, data show.
“It is creating a second class of people to say, ‘You pay your taxes just like everybody else does. You vote like everybody else does. But you just can’t have the same choices as everybody else, because there aren’t enough of you here,’” Koricich said of the cuts. “In a lot of rural places, the idea of choice is sort of a fiction,” he said.
Rural-serving institutions are defined by the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges, or ARRC, which Koricich directs, as those located in counties classified as rural and not near a metropolitan area.
Even some flagship universities that serve rural communities are making big cuts. West Virginia University this fall began the process of eliminating 28 undergraduate and graduate majors and programs, including most foreign languages and graduate programs in math and public administration. The University of Montana is phasing out or has frozen more than 30 certificate, undergraduate and graduate degree programs and concentrations. A course review is also underway at branch campuses of Pennsylvania State University due to declining enrollment.
But most of the cuts have occurred at regional public universities, which get considerably less money from their states — about $1,100 less, per student, than flagships, the ARRC calculates. Regional institutions educate 70 percent of undergraduates who go to public four-year schools, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. These campuses are also more likely than other kinds of institutions to enroll students from lower-income families and who are the first in their families to go to college, the Baltimore-based Art & Science Group consulting firm found.
St. Cloud State University in Minnesota is cutting 42 degree programs, for example, including criminal justice, gerontology, history, electrical and environmental engineering, economics and physics. The University of Alaska System has scaled back more than 40 programs since 2020, including earth sciences, geography and environmental resources and hospitality administration. Also during that period, Henderson State University in Arkansas dropped 25 and. Emporia State University in Kansas cut, merged or downgraded around 40 undergraduate and graduate majors, minors and concentrations.
The State University of New York at Fredonia is dropping 13 majors. SUNY Potsdam is cutting chemistry, physics, philosophy, French, Spanish and four other programs. The University of North Carolina Asheville is discontinuing religious studies, drama, philosophy and concentrations in French and German.
Related: In this shrinking Mississippi Delta county, getting a college degree means leaving home behind
“Some institutions have no other options” than to do this, because of financial problems and plummeting enrollment, said Charles Welch, president and CEO of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and a former president of Henderson State and the Arkansas State University System, both of which have cut programs.
At Delta State, for instance, enrollment is down by nearly a quarter since 2014.
A drop in tuition revenue stemming from that decline created an $11 million hole in the university’s budget, President Daniel Ennis told the campus last year. When Ennis got to Delta State, he also found the university was overestimating its revenue from facilities and merchandise.
“At a certain point there’s going to be less of everything — personnel, money, equipment and opportunities — because we have to rightsize the budget,” Ennis said.
But the American Association of University Professors, which represents faculty, said in a 2021 report that problems such as enrollment drops made worse by the pandemic are being exploited by administrators to close programs “as expeditiously as if colleges and universities were businesses whose CEOs suddenly decided to stop making widgets or shut down the steelworks.”
Welch said schools are often simply trying to reduce program duplication among campuses in the same systems and compensate for having less financial support than flagship universities.
“The challenge that our institutions have is that they tend to be lower resourced than institutions in urban areas, or flagship institutions. They can’t rely on big endowments,” Welch said. The pandemic, he said, “threw a whole additional layer on top of what those institutions were already facing.”
Many of the majors affected are in the humanities and languages, making those disciplines less available to rural students than they are to people who live in urban and suburban areas.
These subjects “do much of the work of helping students dream beyond their realities,” said Michael Theune, who chairs the English Department at Illinois Wesleyan University, a private, nonprofit school that has also eliminated majors. “We are paring down the sense of the vastness of our world and the possibilities of university students to experience it differently.”
Some rural-serving public universities and public universities in largely rural states have now undergone repeated rounds of cuts. Youngstown State University in Ohio, for instance, axed Italian, religious studies and other majors in 2021, then six more this year. In all, more than 25 programs have now been eliminated there, many of them in the humanities.
The university, in a message to the campus, pointed out that there were no students at all in 10 of those majors. But students and faculty say it was still important to offer them.
“It is easy to just write us off as, ‘Oh, well, do they really need that school?’ when there are so many other majors,” said Owen Bertram, a senior theater major whose program has so far escaped the cuts. “But I don’t think it’s that simple.”
Bertram, who is also student government representative for the university’s College of Creative Arts, said it’s hard to watch his classmates who wanted to study humanities struggle with the questions, “Do I stay?” “Do I leave?” “Is it worth it?”
At many of the schools, it’s too early to tell if the program cuts will lead to even lower enrollment. In some cases, however, enrollment has continued to decline. At Emporia State, enrollment is down by 14 percent in the two years since about 40 majors were eliminated there.
These cuts come at a time when the proportion of rural high school graduates going to college is falling. Fifty-five percent enroll right after high school, down from 61 percent in 2016, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. That’s a lower rate than the national average.
Low-income and Black students are disproportionately impacted by program cuts. The University of North Carolina Greensboro, for example, is in the process of phasing out 20 degree programs, including anthropology and physics. More than half the students are low income and 28 percent are Black, according to the state university system.
“UNCG should be a place where anyone should be able to come and get an affordable education in whatever they want,” said Holly Buroughs, a physics major who started a petition protesting the cuts.
“Is a first-gen student like me going to come next year and not see the UNCG that I fell in love with and the opportunities I had?” asked Azariah Journey, a second-year graduate student in history who comes from a rural town in Kentucky.
Related: A community college promises a rural county it ‘hasn’t been left to die’
Dominick Bellipanni is one of the last remaining music students at Delta State as the department is being phased out. He received a scholarship to study piano, which he isn’t sure he would have gotten at the state’s larger, more competitive universities.
Bellipanni is from Indianola, a once-busy crossroad 30 minutes from the university, where he grew up hearing stories about businesses that once operated there but closed.
“Used to be, used to be, used to be,” he remembered people telling him.
Now he’s hearing that again.
His professors talk about how there used to be more music recitals, more scholarships, more money, said Bellipanni, who said he plans to leave the Mississippi Delta when he graduates.
“All you hear is, ‘We used to have this, because we used to have more students.’ ”
Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556 or jmarcus@hechingerreport.org.
This story about rural college majors was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, and Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on strengthening local coverage of higher education. Reporters in the Open Campus Local Network contributed: Mississippi Today’s Molly Minta, WUNC’s Brianna Atkinson and Signal Ohio’s Amy Morona
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
A House committee advanced a bill Tuesday that would send taxpayer money from public to private schools,
The move keeps alive a yearslong push from private school advocates and prompted concern among Democrats that the legislation could undermine public schools serving some of the state’s neediest students.
House Education Chairman Rob Roberson’s bill passed after an hour of debate. Roberson advanced the bill by voice vote and denied Democrats’ request for a roll call where each member’s vote could be recorded. Roberson acknowledged the bill faces a tough road ahead in the Legislature before it would have a chance of becoming law. But he said lawmakers needed to discuss solutions for students in disadvantaged areas who aren’t getting a quality education.
“The purpose of this is for us to continue having a conversation about how we help the poorest of the poor (students),” Roberon said. “I do realize that you all are getting a lot of pressure to push back on this, but we’ve got to keep talking about these things. Even if it makes you uncomfortable, even if you’re getting a million phone calls, these kids deserve to have us talking about this.”
Roberson’s bill would allow students who have been enrolled in a district rated D or F within the past five years to use the state portion of their base student cost — money that would normally go to their local public school — and use it to pay for private school tuition.
Students could only use the money at a private school if there is not an A- or B-rated district willing to accept them within 30 miles of their home. The legislation does not cover transportation costs for students, an omission that Democrats on the committee said would exacerbate the economic strain on poor families.
The money from each child’s base student cost would be placed in an education savings account, a provision designed to protect the legislation from a legal challenge.
The constitutionality of education savings accounts in Mississippi remains a subject of debate. Skeptics say ESAs are unconstitutional because they allow public money to be used to support private schools. Supporters say the accounts do not directly fund private schools, but instead allow families to make their own decisions about where to educate their children.
The legislation creates an initial appropriation of $5 million in public money. The Legislature would then need to appropriate funds for the program based on the state Department of Education’s estimation of students attending private schools that are currently receiving public money and the projected number of eligible students who opt to attend a private school.
Students in families that make less than 138% of the federal poverty level would have first access to the money. After that, funds would be disbursed on a first-come, first-served basis.
Students would need to obtain approval from the receiving district in order to transfer to another public school. The district could decline to accept the student if school officials say they don’t have enough room.
Proponents of such “school choice” measures argue that parents should have greater autonomy to customize their children’s education and that students shouldn’t be trapped in low-performing schools. Opponents argue these measures starve already under-resourced public schools of funds they would otherwise receive.
Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville, said the bill and similar measures sending taxpayer funds to private schools would widen the “separation of school systems” between rich and poor areas. He also said the bill would be struck down by either a state or federal court if it became law.
“There will be an educational gap that will be furthered by this bill and the constitutionality has not been vetted,” Taylor said. “The intent has always been to divert money to charter schools and private schools. For years we’ve pushed back against it. Now we’re seeing again that this ugly head of the separation of education, those who are afforded more access and those who are not.”
Roberson said that divide already exists in Mississippi and that wealthy families find ways to send their children to the schools of their choosing, either public or private.
“Frankly it comes down to, the rich people can take kids can take their kids and go anywhere they want to. The poor kids, whether transportation is attached or not, end up going to what’s left over,” Roberson said. “If you’re a wealthy person, you have school choice.”
The school choice debate has been intertwined with debates over race and class in education. Those against school choice say the policies could effectively re-segregate schools. School choice supporters say some high-performing school districts fight school choice measures to avoid accepting students from poor and minority backgrounds.
Roberson said he did not believe the Legislature was ready to support “full-blown school choice.” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and senators with sway over education policy have not said they support sending public money to private schools. Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, said this week that he is skeptical that even a measure to ease transfers between public schools could pass.
The bill has already drawn fierce opposition from public education groups, who said the measure could lay the groundwork for an unconstitutional voucher program impacting all public schools in the state
“Just because it is being passed through the parents’ hands before it goes to the private school, doesn’t make the action any less unconstitutional, in our opinion,” said Erica Jones, Executive Director of the Mississippi Association of Educators.
The proposal now awaits a vote on the House floor.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi midwives push for licensure: ‘If we don’t do something now, it’s going to get done for us’
A group of Mississippi midwives is again advocating for regulations around their profession – a move they say will actually make it easier for midwives to practice in the state in the long run.
Under proposed legislation, midwives who want to practice in Mississippi would need to attain licensure from a board, and in turn would gain multiple privileges. As it stands, Mississippi is one of 13 states that has no regulations around professional midwifery – a freedom that hasn’t benefited midwives or mothers, advocates say.
“Tattoo artists have to apply for a license within our state, but yet someone who’s actually delivering a life and taking care of a mom, prenatal and postnatal – there’s no oversight,” said Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, author of the bill. McLean has proposed similar legislation over the past few years.
This is the first year the legislation made it to a full floor vote. The bill specifically addresses professional midwifery – not nurse midwifery, which requires more extensive medical training.
House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, proposed an amendment that would make it unlawful for licensed midwives to do homebirths for breech babies, but withdrew her amendment after other committee members voiced opposition to it. McLean said part of the purpose of the bill is to give women the opportunity to choose to give birth how they feel safest, and it would be the board’s responsibility to determine scope of practice.
Proponents of House Bill 927 say it builds value around midwives, protects mothers and babies, and strengthens the respect and collaboration between midwives and physicians.
“Consumers should be able to birth wherever they want and with whom they want – but they should know who is a midwife and who isn’t,” explained Tanya Smith-Johnson, president of the National College of Midwifery. “… Right now the way the law is, technically my husband could say ‘I’m a midwife,’ and there’s no one to say that you’re not.”
The lack of licensure, despite seeming inclusive, has rendered midwifery services inaccessible to poor women – and has also run some midwives out of business, Smith-Johnson explained.
Without licensure, insurance companies won’t cover midwifery services. Mississippi mothers have to pay out of pocket for the services and midwives end up undervaluing themselves to stay competitive in a market that doesn’t recognize them as licensed professionals.
“It’s hard for a midwife to be sustainable here,” Smith-Johnson said. “ … What is the standard of how much midwifery can cost if anyone and everyone can say they’re a midwife?”
The absence of licensure has also meant that midwives don’t get access to things like labor medication that those certified in states with licensure can access.
“It means that you’re kind of working just rogue … not being able to fully take care of a client, where you can order labs, carry oxygen, have medications a midwife would use for someone who is in labor – all of those things,” she said.
Smith-Johnson is part of Better Birth, a group that has been pushing for this legislation for five years. The group formed in response to an infant death that involved a midwife making questionable choices. The mother involved didn’t want to press charges – she just wanted reform.
“We formed because the mom had two options,” explained Erin Raftery, president of Better Birth. “She could either sue the midwife … but if she did that then it’s almost a guarantee that the profession would either be heavily restricted or outlawed, which is not what that mama wanted … So the other option her attorney gave her was to push for licensure.”
Anyone who practiced midwifery without a license under the bill would be fined $1,000.
In a state riddled with maternity care deserts, the last thing mothers want to see is birth workers leaving the state. But with no clear pathway to becoming a professional midwife, some birth workers are doing just that.
When Amanda Smith, originally from Jackson, was looking for a midwife to attend the births of her last three children, she and her husband couldn’t find a midwife with whom they felt comfortable working. Smith later discovered her calling for birth work while she was supporting her sister through labor, and she ended up getting her professional midwifery license in Colorado.
She returned to Mississippi in 2022 to serve her home state and now practices in Hattiesburg. However, she imagines there are midwives like her who leave the state and don’t come back – in no small part because of the liability risk that lack of licensure poses. While Smith has a Colorado midwifery license, she can’t become licensed in Mississippi because it doesn’t exist.
“It was one thing that really worried me about moving back,” Smith said. “I hired a lawyer to do a consultation and help me look over my paperwork and talk me through any scenario where I could potentially go to jail for being a midwife in Mississippi … I really look at this (bill) as a protection for midwives.”
If the bill becomes law, the board – comprised of nine members, including six midwives and the state health officer – will get to choose the kind of training midwives must undergo in order to attain a license.
In Texas, licensed midwives must complete a minimum of 1,350 hours of supervised clinical experience and pass an examination with NARM, the North American Registry of Midwives.
The bill seems to have more traction this year than it has in years past. Midwives say that in part, that’s due to a growing realization that they have the opportunity to regulate their profession as they see fit – before one too many risky situations causes physicians to impose regulations that don’t have midwives’ best interests in mind.
“I think there’s just been more iffy situations happening in the state, and it’s caused the midwives to realize that if we don’t do something now, it’s going to get done for us,” said Raftery.
The bill now advances to a full floor vote in the House.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Stories: James Storey
People still remember where they were on that hot, muggy Mississippi afternoon when Ole Miss fullback James Storey caught two touchdown passes to defeat Notre Dame 20-13 at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium. Nearly 50 years later, people also remember all the ways that Coach Storey has changed their lives for the better. Moving back to his hometown of Ripley, Storey left the gridiron for the classroom. Dedicating his life to a mindset of humility, generosity, and selflessness that involves serving others without expecting anything in return, he truly has a servant’s heart. I traveled to north Mississippi to meet up with him to discuss his football days and his long career as an educator, principal and coach. He also shared his passion of helping the Boys & Girls Club of North Mississippi as well. Storey is a hero on and off the gridiron. And while the 1977 Notre Dame team may not agree, he’s also a heck of a nice guy.
For more videos, subscribe to Mississippi Today’s YouTube channel.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Japan’s Toyota announces EV and battery push in China and U.S., as its quarterly profit surges
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum space, message expands with $30 million project
New resource center opens for families in Montgomery ISD
How law enforcement agencies are keeping New Orleans safe ahead of the Super Bowl
Jailed over police AI program, then freed 17 months after victim raised doubts
Mississippi made players shine on the NFL’s biggest stage in New Orleans for Super Bowl 59
Texas House legislators file resolution congratulating Beyoncé on Grammy Award wins
Region 8-3A Baseball: Playoff Pedigrees And Returning Players Set The Stage For 2025
NFL referee Boris Cheek set to officiate fourth Super Bowl
Fort Smith considers sewer rate hike
WKU Mourns Loss Of Cross Country/Track & Field Head Coach Brent Chumbley
“Very hard to believe”, locals react to arrest Lincoln County commissioner in child molestation investigation
Oysters for Autism: shucking, sipping, and supporting the Lowcountry community
Air traffic controllers were initially offered buyouts and told to consider leaving government
Gulfport Combat Readiness Training Center hosts Sentry South-Southern Strike 2025
Second federal judge issues temporary order blocking Trump spending freeze • Louisiana Illuminator
This year’s hottest Super Bowl ticket? Advertising space, Fox says
Trump transgender order mirrors SC bill
Randy McDonald at Silly Billy’s offers vintage style with a smile
Washington County deputy fired after violent arrest had murky past
New resource center opens for families in Montgomery ISD
Jailed over police AI program, then freed 17 months after victim raised doubts
Texas House legislators file resolution congratulating Beyoncé on Grammy Award wins
NFL referee Boris Cheek set to officiate fourth Super Bowl
Fort Smith considers sewer rate hike
Grieving mom says last person to see her son is being protected | FOX 5 News
Biloxi firefighters undergoing scenario-based training to maintain city's fire rating
Arkansas schools monitoring uptick in illnesses
Kentucky General Assembly picks back up for part 2
Volunteers help Animal Care Society, a no-kill shelter, prepare expanded facilities
-
News from the South - Kentucky News Feed5 days agoWKU Mourns Loss Of Cross Country/Track & Field Head Coach Brent Chumbley
-
News from the South - Georgia News Feed6 days ago
“Very hard to believe”, locals react to arrest Lincoln County commissioner in child molestation investigation
-
News from the South - Georgia News Feed2 days ago
Oysters for Autism: shucking, sipping, and supporting the Lowcountry community
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed4 days ago
Air traffic controllers were initially offered buyouts and told to consider leaving government
-
Local News Video5 days ago
Gulfport Combat Readiness Training Center hosts Sentry South-Southern Strike 2025
-
News from the South - Louisiana News Feed1 day ago
Second federal judge issues temporary order blocking Trump spending freeze • Louisiana Illuminator
-
News from the South - Georgia News Feed7 days ago
This year’s hottest Super Bowl ticket? Advertising space, Fox says
-
News from the South - South Carolina News Feed4 days ago
Trump transgender order mirrors SC bill
