Mississippi lawmakers make cuts to education in new budget
Mississippi’s state education faces more budget cuts for the 2017 fiscal year.
Governor Phil Bryant and Mississippi lawmakers recently proposed the new state budget for 2017-2018, totaling $6 billion. This is $329 million less than the original total planned last year. The proposed state budget makes cuts to a number of different programs including Medicaid, Public Safety, and Education. Lawmakers proposed and passed the 2017-2018 state budget on March 25.
The Clarion Ledger reports all public institutions will face new budget cuts to lower costs including: K-12; colleges and universities; and junior colleges and community colleges.
Brandon Harrison, Hub City TV
K-12 schools face a one percent cut to $2.2 million. Mississippi’s eight colleges and universities will lose 9- percent, or $68 million of funding from the monetary amount the state originally planned to give them. This grings the total to over $1 billion. Finally, the state’s 15 junior colleges and community colleges will be the most affected, with a 10-precent cut in funding from the original amount they had planned to receive for this fiscal year, which totals $60,380,287.
In an interview for the Associated Press, Higher Education Commissioner Glen Boyce said the state’s universities will have to figure out what to do with less state money coming in to help with costs.
“ There's no doubt that we're going to have to look at how we're going to raise revenue,” Boyce said.
The University of Southern Mississippi and William Carey University are among the institutions in Hattiesburg that will be affected by the new budget cuts. While William Carey, a private institution, will not be affected by a lack of funding, Provost Dr. Scott Hummel says the cuts will primarily affect students with financial aid. However, public colleges and universities like Southern Miss will face more of an economic impact, especially with a decrease in funding. With the cuts to financial aid for students, Hummel is concerned that students from Mississippi will leave the state to go to out-of-state universities, causing what Hummel calls a “brain drain.”
“We obviously have great students and we have great students that stay in Mississippi and very good
universities, including William Carey, but we also have a lot of students that go out-of-state. And I think a disproportionate number of Mississippi students that go to other states,” Hummel said.
The New York Times reports a total of 4,447 students came from other states to attend public universities in 2016. At the same time, only a total of 845 students left the state to go to public universities. However, Hummel is concerned the new cuts will possibly discourage out-of-state students from attending Mississippi colleges and universities.
Brandon Harrison, Hub City TV
“Part of the question is to what degree will this maybe accelerate that or increase that. Because for the economics of Mississippi and for the economic development of Mississippi, we want students to come to Mississippi and to stay in Mississippi. So if it reduces the number of students, that hurts us all” Hummel states.
Hummel says he understands that the state cannot always pay for everything it needs.
“Sometimes it’s just the cold, hard reality that you can’t pay for everything you need and certainly can’t pay for everything you want. This is where you certainly have to balance your tax cuts and your priorities, you have to balance all of that,” Hummel says.
Dr. Scott Hummel, Provost of William Carey University. Video: Brandon Harrison, Hub City TV
Meanwhile, students at William Carey and Southern Miss feel the state should look elsewhere when it comes to cutting the state budget, not education. Olivia Paris-Harbison, a senior English licensure major at Southern Miss, believes cutting funding to education is not the best option.
“I personally think it’s a very foolish mistake. Education is one of the things that shouldn’t be the first thing on the list to have budget cuts,” Paris-Harbison states.
Paris-Harbison isn’t alone in her fear. Other students addressed concerns over what may happen to schools in Mississippi due to the loss of funding. Students at William Carey, like junior Psychology major, Raven Worthington, believe the state should not cut money that goes toward education.
“I personally don’t think it’s fair. I feel it should not be budget cut. We need as much money we need to put in our school systems because our school systems are already lacking in things it needs to be improved,” Worthington says.
Brandon Harrison, Hub City TV
With the new budget cuts, Paris-Harbison is worried how the cuts will affect students who are starting college, as well as current university students.
“The worst thing would be tuition’s probably going to go up for students who are newly enrolled in the university, and for students who are here, it’s probably gonna result in just lots of complications on the way to graduation,” Paris-Harbison says.
Southern Miss already plans to increase tuition for in-state students for the next academic year. According to the Southern Miss website’s tuition page, in-state students who are considered full-time students
pay $3,829.50 in tuition fees for the 2016-2017 academic year. Next year, fees will increase by $152.50 to a total of $3,982. Meanwhile, out-of-state students considered full-time will see a drop in tution fees from $8,264.50 to $4,982, a decrease of $3,282.50.
The new budget cuts will also cut money from students who qualify for any of the state’s five main grant programs: the Mississippi Tuition Grant (MTAG), the Mississippi Eminent Scholars Grant (MESG), the Higher Education Legislative Plan for Needy Students (HELP), the Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers and Firemen Scholarship (LAW) and Nissan Scholarship. Currently, students eligible for one of these programs can receive more grant money, commonly known as “stacking.” However, the new budget cuts will end stacking,givingthe students the grant with the largest amount. Brandon Harrison, Hub City TV
The new state budget will go into effect on July 1, which is the beginning of Mississippi’s fiscal year.
