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Most school districts only used the state’s new telehealth program a few times in the 2022-23 school year, but program administrators say they are working to increase participation and have already seen positive results. 

The school-based telehealth program was created by the Mississippi Department of Education, which gave $17.6 million of pandemic relief money to the University of Mississippi Medical Center to administer the program. The grant, which expires in Sept. 2024, covers laptops for video conferencing, rapid strep and flu tests, and specially equipped stethoscopes and otoscopes that transmit information to the doctors or nurse practitioners on the other end of the call. 

The program, which is free to students, began under the direction of former State Superintendent Carey Wright, with the goal of increasing access to medical care and keeping children in school more hours each day. Over half of the counties in Mississippi have no practicing pediatricians according to the Office of Mississippi Physician Workforce, something this program aims to help address by decreasing the amount of time families spend traveling to access care. 

The program was open to all 145 school districts in the state, and 100 signed up. Of those 100, data from UMMC shows only 34 districts had at least one visit in the 2022-23 school year. However, some visits were not assigned to a school district, making it possible that more participated. 

Dr. Saurabh Chandra, the hospital’s chief telehealth officer, said he is very proud of the speed at which his team has been able to successfully roll out the telehealth program. This is the largest school-based telehealth program in the country he is aware of, adding it was implemented faster than many others. While he was pleased that connectivity did not end up being a major issue, he said the shortage of school nurses has been a challenge. 

After spending the first year focused on implementation, Chandra said the goal is now increasing participation. He said nurse educators are communicating regularly with school districts to understand their concerns. UMMC has already made at least one change  – allowing school nurses to call and schedule an appointment instead of doing it in the computer software – based on the feedback.

The outreach already seems to be helping: the program averaged about 150-170 visits a month last year, but August and September of this year have seen about 275 visits each month.

“(The program) is in a stage of infancy,” he said. “You have to implement the program, you have to understand the barriers, you have to do the engagement, this is a continuous work, but we are seeing good trends.” 

Lauren Hunt, the nurse at Stone County Elementary School, is a regular user of the program. Stone County does not have any practicing pediatricians, but there are several in neighboring coast counties, according to the physician workforce data. 

Hunt brings up the service to parents when she thinks a student could benefit and said she has had very few parents refuse. She said she “has not been able to brag on it enough” and expressed a desire for more school nurses to start using it so it can be a greater benefit to the state. 

“The school nurse is really the keyholder – she is the one that has to want to implement it and use it,” Hunt said. 

She also emphasized the importance of outreach to parents so they’re aware they can request visits and don’t automatically take their children to the doctor on their own. Hunt said she has seen this be effective in action, particularly for children without health insurance who have used it for ear infections and other small issues. 

Parent outreach is also a priority for UMMC, but Chandra said his team depends on school districts to spread the word. He hopes as parent awareness of the program increases, their trust in it will rise as well leading to increased participation.

Jana Miller is one of two nurses covering five rural schools in the Greene County School District. Her favorite part of the program is the convenience: appointments are usually available within 30 minutes, and students are not required to check out and wait to be seen, saving parents time as well. 

Miller said her district has also utilized the teletherapy portion of the program, which provides mental health services to children. The school identifies students for it based on parental requests, school staff’s knowledge of difficult circumstances, or a child reaching out for someone to talk to. She also schedules these appointments but does not participate in them like the telehealth visits.

“I was really apprehensive (of the telehealth program) at first because I just didn’t know how it was going to work, but I’m very glad we took the leap of faith and went through with it,” she said.

One district hopes to use the program more now that technical issues have been resolved. There are no pediatricians in Chickasaw County, where nurse Dawn Vance works in the schools. 

“I think with a little push, maybe the nurses get a little more training and the IT stuff gets all worked out, I think it would really pick up, especially in an area like ours where there’s not many options,” she said.

Other districts have said they don’t have as much of a need for the program because of existing school-based clinics or parent preference for local pediatricians. 

Hunt, the Stone Elementary School nurse, said she hopes more schools start using it so the state will have an incentive to keep funding the program after the federal pandemic relief money expires. 

UMMC is looking for other grants to continue funding the project or considering turning it into a program that takes insurance, Chandra said. 

“We know that there’s a need for it out there,” said Scott Clements, director of healthy schools for the Mississippi Department of Education. “We have a lot of rural areas … and in those rural areas you oftentimes don’t have the services you have in a metropolitan area.”

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No state in the contiguous United States has had more rainfall than Mississippi over the last five years. But even the wettest parts of the country are seeing their crops dry up due to unrelenting drought this summer.  

A variety of plants, from cotton to soybeans to peanuts, are taking a hit in Mississippi. Livestock farmers, faced with dried up pastures, are either having to sell their cattle or feed them hay that’s supposed to be saved for the winter. 

“Normally, we don’t start feeding hay to cattle until November usually,” said Shelby Bearden, Mississippi State University’s Extension agent for Copiah County. “And there were people feeding hay in August this year.” 

Experienced farmers, like Louis Guedon in Jefferson County, said it’s been decades since Mississippi has seen conditions like this year. 

“It ain’t been this dry in thirty-something years,” said Guedon, adding that he’s grown just a fifth of the number of corn bushels he gets under average weather conditions. “It’s a bloodbath.”

About a third of the state is experiencing “severe to exceptional” drought, according to the state’s agriculture department, and over two-thirds are seeing at least minimal drought. Over the last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared emergencies for 24 counties in Mississippi to help farmers in those areas access federal assistance.

While most of Mississippi is seeing at least “abnormally dry” weather, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the worst conditions are concentrated in the southern half of the state, especially in Amite, Pike, Walthall, Lawrence, Lincoln, Copiah and Simpson counties. 

“It’s the worst drought we’ve seen in a long, long time,” said Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson in a Sept. 8 news release. Gipson later told Mississippi Today that it’s too early to know where this year’s drought ranks versus previous ones, but that it’s so far comparable to one the state had in the late 1980s. 

Hazlehurst farmer Walter West Jr. said the dry conditions have lasted since mid-July. At his family’s farm, he said they were able to plant corn early enough to get a good yield, but have lost about $100,000 from reduced cotton output. A third-generation farmer, West said the variance in weather conditions is just part of the job.

“That’s the risk you take,” he said, adding that some years the crops suffer from too much rain. “It’s just a big gamble I guess. Mother Nature, she’s the ultimate determination of what you do, and you’re at her mercy year in and year out.”

West said he could potentially tap into his crop insurance to stabilize the farm’s finances for next year, but hopes to not have to go that route. Gipson encouraged farmers to contact their local USDA office to report their losses and to see what types of federal aid they can access. 

Guedon, whose farm has been in his family for over 150 years, emphasized that the issue is the combination of the lack of rain with the intense heat.

This summer, Jackson saw its hottest August ever, with an average temperature of 87.8 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Weather Service. This July was the third-hottest ever in the city. 

“If you don’t think that doing nothing in 100 degree heat will exhaust you, just go put your chair out in the middle of the parking lot and just sit in it for eight hours,” Guedon said. “Your clothes will be wet with sweat, you’ll be able to wring water out of your underwear.”

He said in addition to drying out crops, the high temperatures affect his cows’ reproductive cycles. 

“They’re less likely to ovulate when it’s hot, hot, hot,” he said. “And the bulls… they don’t breed the cattle as well when it’s hot, hot, hot.”

Gipson said livestock farmers are having to make tough decisions to survive financially. 

“It truly is a disaster, that’s the only word for it,” the commissioner said. “A lot of the (livestock producers) are being forced into a position of having to sell out because they can’t afford to hold these cows through these conditions.” 

As of Sept. 14, Mississippi farmers in 32 counties were eligible for the USDA’s Livestock Forage Disaster Program, which provides compensation to livestock producers who suffer grazing losses due to drought. 

Gipson said the tough year for Mississippi farmers goes back to March, when a winter freeze took out much of the state’s blueberry production. 

Despite the trying conditions, he hopes those who can will try again next year.

“I encourage every one of our farmers to get back in as soon as possible because we really need every farmer in this state,” Gipson said. “We already have fewer farmers than we’ve ever had.”

The post ‘Hot, hot, hot’: Historic heat and drought taking toll on state’s agriculture appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi State and Southern Miss men’s basketball teams will play an exhibition game this fall, and tornado victims in the Mississippi Delta will benefit.

The game will be played at USM’s Reed Green Coliseum on Oct. 29 at 2 p.m. 

It will mark the first time Mississippi State has played in Hattiesburg since 1995, the same season State later won the Southeastern Conference Tournament and then later advanced to the Final Four under Coach Richard Williams.

“This is something both schools are excited about. It will be great preparation for the season and at the same time raise some money for some Mississippians who really need some help,” Ladner said.

Much of the southern part of the Mississippi Delta is still reeling from the March 24 tornado that devastated Rolling Fork and Silver City with winds that reached 195 mph, killing 17 people and injuring scores of others. 

The MSU-USM charity game began with discussions between Southern Miss coach Jay Ladner and State’s Chris Jans about playing a regular season game. When that didn’t work out, the two coaches first talked about a closed scrimmage but then landed on the idea of an open exhibition to help tornado victims.

“We’re excited about State coming to Hattiesburg and thankful to Coach Jans for helping make this happen,” Ladner said.

Southern Miss, defending Sun Belt Conference regular season champions, will be coming off a 25-8 season. State will be coming off a 21-13 record in Jans’ first season in Starkville. Mississippi State advanced to the NCAA Tournament. USM played in the NIT postseason tournament.

State leads the all-time rivalry 16-4 and won the last meeting between the schools 70-64 in December of 2017. They last played in Hattiesburg on Dec. 16, 1995, when Williams’ Final Four team defeated M.K. Turk’s last Southern Miss team 72-69 in overtime.

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The U.S. Department of Education has placed Mississippi’s public university system under a form of oversight that restricts the flow of federal financial aid dollars and hinders the creation of new academic programs, according to a letter obtained by Mississippi Today. 

The Institutions of Higher Learning is planning to appeal the sanction, known as heightened cash monitoring. It comes after IHL was 75 days late in submitting its system-wide annual audit and financial statements for fiscal year 2022.

“This untimely audit submission constitutes a failure of financial responsibility under the Department’s regulations,” according to an Aug. 4 letter the federal education department sent to Gov. Tate Reeves, the IHL commissioner, and the presidents and financial aid directors of the eight public universities. 

For the next five years, when Mississippi universities seek to cover tuition with federal financial aid dollars — everything from Pell Grants to student loans — they will be required to first provide certain documentation. Typically, universities are able to draw down federal funds in advance. 

This creates an administrative headache because universities rely on federal financial aid to cover a significant chunk of tuition, and Mississippi is no exception. About two-thirds of full-time undergraduate freshmen at the public universities receive federal financial aid like the Pell Grant, according to the most recently available federal data. 

“It’s a much bigger concern for small private colleges that are really tight on cash, but for a public system that has some money it’s much more of a slap on the wrist,” said Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education finance at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 

The more significant penalty is that IHL will also be required to submit any new academic programs for a full review by its accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, before the Board of Trustees can approve.

Sometimes universities need to extend credit lines or shift funds in response to heightened cash monitoring, but Kim Gallaspy, an IHL spokesperson, wrote in an email that the agency won’t need to do that. Reeves’ office did not respond to questions by press time.

To date, IHL has not publicly announced the stricter status, even though it was in place before the start of the fall semester. Just last week, some of the universities started notifying faculty and staff about it at meetings and via internal email.

Gallaspy wrote the reason for the delay was IHL’s third-party auditor, the national accountancy firm CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, needed more time to perform additional audits after discovering that “some institutions had inaccurately classified federal program funds,” including major programs. Gallaspy did not specify which institutions.

“To be clear, although the funds were misclassified there were no findings from our auditor which indicate that federal funds were inappropriately spent,” she wrote.

This resulted in IHL submitting its audited financial statements on June 14 of this year when they were due on March 31, according to the letter.

The letter asked IHL to upload information to an online portal if the agency believes it did not err in submitting its audited financial statements late. It’s unclear if IHL did that, though Gallaspy wrote the agency is working to appeal the decision.

“We have also required written corrective action plans to be submitted,” Gallaspy write. “These corrective action plans will be tested for effectiveness by the Board’s Office of Internal Audit. Ineffective corrective actions will warrant further corrective measures by the Board.”

It’s not unusual for universities to be sanctioned in this way by the U.S. Department of Education, according to Inside Higher Ed. 

IHL will be joining six other universities in Mississippi that are under heightened cash monitoring as of June 2023, including Belhaven University, Coahoma Community College and Traxler’s School of Hair, a for-profit college in Jackson.

The post IHL system put on federal monitoring after blowing deadline to submit annual audit appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Students applauded, cried and jumped with excitement at the news that Mississippi’s first charter high school was approved Monday afternoon. 

The school, Clarksdale Collegiate Prep, has been approved to open in the Clarksdale Municipal School District in the fall of 2025. It is an expansion of Clarksdale Collegiate Public, a K-8 public school already operational in the school district. 

Two groups applied this year to open charter high schools in Mississippi, and Clarksdale Collegiate Prep was the only finalist. About 35 students and school employees came to Jackson today to watch the Charter School Authorizer Board vote on the proposal, which had been approved by an outside evaluator and passed unanimously.

Charter schools are free public schools that do not report to a school board like traditional public schools. Instead, they are governed by the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board, which oversees the application process to open a new charter school. They have more flexibility for teachers and administrators when it comes to student instruction, and are funded by local school districts based on enrollment.

Charter schools can apply directly to the authorizer board if they’re planning to open in a D or F district. If an operator wants to open in an A, B, or C district, they need to get approval from the local school board. Clarksdale Collegiate Prep will be opening in the Clarksdale Municipal School District, which is currently F-rated.

This is Clarksdale Collegiate’s second year applying to open a high school after having their application denied last year. Amanda Johnson, the executive director of the Clarksdale Collegiate schools, told Mississippi Today that she believed the school succeeded this time because they were two years out from opening instead of three, which allowed them to be more detailed in their application. 

In her comments to the board asking them to approve the proposal, Johnson talked about her school’s commitment to the success of its students. 

“We’re here in order to make sure we’re fulfilling the promise that we made to scholars back in 2017-18,” she said. “We told (families) we were putting their child on a path to go to and through college. So opening up a high school, even though it’s hard, even though it’s expensive, we believe that work is worthy and that our scholars and the scholars of the Delta deserve the absolute best.” 

When the vote came up on the agenda, board member Jennifer Whitter said it gave her great joy to make a motion to approve the school. 

Students began celebrating immediately after the vote was announced. Johnson said her students have been invested in this application process and have provided input at points, particularly the students who were present as they will be the first graduating class of the high school. 

Johnson said her next steps include announcing the location of the high school to parents and the community, fleshing out the academic plans, and looking at merging the contracts for each school into one in order to reduce duplicates in reporting. Currently, each charter school in Mississippi is categorized by the state as its own school district, but the Authorizer Board is considering a process to allow schools run by the same operator to come under one contract. 

“I’m excited to get started,” she said. 

The post Mississippi board approves state’s first charter high school appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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Gov. Tate Reeves, after months of inaction, has unveiled a plan he says will turn Mississippi’s health care crisis around. 

However, even some health care experts were stumped by how the Governor’s proposed reforms will work. 

The plan, which Reeves announced at a press conference Thursday while flanked by state health care leaders, is essentially a complex scheme to increase extra payments hospitals get for treating patients on Medicaid — and notably doesn’t include Medicaid expansion.

Some Mississippi leaders say Reeves’ ideas aren’t even that new. It’s not certain they’ll be approved, either.

The announcement comes less than two months before Election Day, and after his opponent in the gubernatorial race, Democrat Brandon Presley, has repeatedly stated his intention to expand Medicaid if elected and largely campaigned on the state’s hospital crisis.

Two things were clear at the conference: Reeves claims the changes would put a much-needed $700 million in hospitals’ pockets, and he does not plan to expand Medicaid.

Everything else, however, was not as easy to understand.

How will Gov. Reeves’ plan work?

The plan relies on two major changes that bolster supplemental payments to hospitals for the care they provide to people with Medicaid. Supplemental payments are extra payments hospitals receive to offset low Medicaid reimbursement rates or uncompensated care, which is money hospitals lose caring for patients who are uninsured and can’t pay their hospital bill. Medicaid is a federal-state program that provides health coverage to millions of people in the U.S., including low-income adults, children, pregnant women, elderly adults and people with disabilities. The income requirement for people in Mississippi to qualify is extremely stringent. 

The first is a change to the Mississippi Hospital Access Program, which typically pays hospitals for the gap between payments for services rendered for Medicaid managed care patients (which are usually lower) and Medicare patients (which are usually slightly higher). Under the proposed changes, hospitals will instead be paid for the gap between Medicaid patients and people insured by commercial plans, which tend to reimburse at higher rates. 

The state Division of Medicaid was granted a similar change to the program in March for outpatient services, resulting in $40.2 million for hospitals. However, Medicaid officials had expected it to generate an additional $450 million. But because Mississippi’s average commercial rate is so low, the payout was much less. 

What’s not clear is how, in Reeves’ plan, the average commercial rate results in nearly triple what hospitals typically get for these payments — going from a total of $562 million to $1.522 billion. Reeves didn’t say at the press conference what average commercial rate was actually being used (whether a state, regional or national rate).

When asked what had changed since the spring regarding these rates, Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder did not directly answer the question. 

“I think the difference is, we got the right people in the room … sometimes it makes sense to get a second opinion,” he said before stepping back in line on stage.

The second initiative modifies the Upper Payment Limit Supplemental Payments, which are aimed at also increasing payments for hospitals that receive low payments from Medicaid. This program will yield an increase of an additional $137 million in fiscal year 2024, according to Reeves. 

State leaders did something similar earlier this year after the Mississippi Hospital Access Program projections came in much lower than originally expected, said Tim Moore, former leader of the state hospital association. It resulted in an extra one-time payment of $137 million.

The supplemental payment programs are meant to reduce disparities in insurance payments and the cost of caring for uninsured people. By changing them, the state is drawing down more federal money because of our state’s high Federal Medical Assistance Percentage match, which is the highest in the country at 77.27% because of our state’s high poverty rate. Hospitals have to put up more in “bed taxes” for the state portion, and then the federal government matches. 

In other words, if a Medicaid patient receives a service at a Mississippi hospital that costs $100, the hospital is reimbursed $77.27 from federal funds. The remaining $22.73 must be paid by the state – that $22.73 comes from the hospitals themselves in the form of a tax. 

Harold Miller, leader of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform described it this way: “When the state is paying for a Medicaid service, the state has to find the state share — that 23% — somewhere. They have to find that money, and ordinarily they would have to tax the taxpayers to do that.” Instead, Mississippi asks the hospitals for that money, he said. 

In short, hospitals will have to pay $178 million in taxes for Mississippi Hospital Access Program payments to go up by $960 million, Upper Payment Limit payments will yield $137 million and disproportionate share hospital payments — which make up the difference for hospitals that lose money on serving a significant population of Medicaid-insured and uninsured people — will decrease by $230 million because the other payments are bridging the gap. The net gain for hospitals will be $689 million total. 

Who will the plan help?

Experts agree this plan will keep hospitals open for longer. Even if it’s unclear how the expected payments will increase, it’s still a significant amount of money — money that hospitals have been asking for for a long time. However, critics say it’s not ensuring more people receive health care.  

According to federal data, Mississippi has the highest uninsured rate of people aged 18-64 in the country, as of September. About one in every six Mississippians is uninsured. 

Emergency rooms by law cannot turn down people, regardless of their insurance status, who come for care — but doctors’ offices can and so can pharmacies. That means people who are uninsured in Mississippi, one of the unhealthiest states in the nation, cannot receive preventative care or medications that they need. They generally must rely on the emergency room for their health care needs. 

“People typically need a lot more care than care in a hospital, and a lot of that care is preventive care… outpatient care,” said Adam Searing, an associate professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families whose work focuses on Medicaid. “If you get cancer and you need prescriptions and drugs and outpatient care from a team of specialists, this has nothing to do with that. So, the key differences, this is an issue about the finances of hospitals. 

“And Medicaid expansion is about financial security for families.”

How much money is it bringing to hospitals?

Reeves said a little over $689 million will go to the state’s hospitals under this plan. 

And although he said Thursday the money would benefit all hospitals, it appears larger hospitals will benefit most, even though most agree that small rural hospitals are the facilities feeling the strain of the health care crisis most acutely. 

Additionally, nearly half of the money — 45% or about $309 million — will go to hospitals that have left the state hospital association in recent months. In the spring, after the Mississippi Hospital Association’s PAC made a $250,000 donation to Presley, several hospitals left the organization.

Most of those hospitals’ leaders stood behind Reeves as he announced his plan Thursday.

Is this a new plan?

Reeves said at the press conference this plan has been in the works for four to five months. 

According to Tim Moore, former head of the state hospital association, and another state leader, that’s not true. 

A year ago, Moore learned of similar measures in Louisiana and brought the idea to state leaders. Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann recently told Mississippi Today that hospital payment initiatives were discussed by stakeholders last year, but the Division of Medicaid told his office that those changes weren’t possible.

Will it cost the taxpayers anything?

Reeves repeated at the conference that the changes would come at no cost to taxpayers, though he noted Snyder and his division employees are paid by state tax dollars. 

That’s mostly true — taxpayers will likely not feel the brunt of this big tax increase for hospitals,  according to one expert. Even if hospital charges increase, it should be eaten by the insurance companies and services for people who are uninsured will continue to go uncompensated and be claimed as charity care.

Is it final?

The plan is being submitted to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services for approval. Snyder estimated at the conference that the state would likely hear from the federal government within two to three months. If it’s approved, it would be retroactively effective beginning July 1, 2023. 

It’s hard to say what the likelihood of approval is, though several other states have passed similar Medicaid reforms intended to draw down more federal dollars. 

One expert said it was unlikely that Mississippi state leaders announced the plan without expecting CMS approval, and historically, the agency has erred on the side of keeping hospitals open — even if it comes at the cost of forgoing expansion.

How is this different from Medicaid expansion?

Medicaid expansion has long been pointed to as a solution to the state’s worsening hospital crisis. Republican state leadership – Reeves most prominently – has staunchly opposed the policy adoption, despite support from a majority of Mississippians. 

At the press conference Thursday, Reeves repeatedly incorrectly referred to the program as “welfare,” and claimed the solution to the issue was putting more people in the workforce. He said if more people are added to Medicaid’s rolls, hospitals will keep losing money because Medicaid payments are so low. 

That’s better than losing money on people who are uninsured, said Adam Searing, the associate professor whose work focuses on Medicaid.

“These are two disconnected things,” he said. “Reimbursement rates for hospitals and expanding Medicaid are completely separate issues.”

While hospital leaders agree that these policy reforms will make a huge difference for many hospitals in the state, it still might not be enough to single handedly solve the crisis. In other states, such as Louisiana, similar policy reforms work in tandem with Medicaid expansion to create a holistically supported health care system. 

The way Moore sees it, the state is putting up $170 million for a $700 million net gain, when with expansion, it could put up $100 million for a $1 billion reward. 

States that have not expanded Medicaid have been offered a financial incentive to do so — an estimated $600 million in federal funds over two years. 

And, despite more hospitals that will probably be able to stay open as a result of these reforms, uninsured Mississippians still won’t have health care. That means they will have to continue to rely on emergency rooms for their medical care — the most expensive place to receive health care — and uncompensated care costs will continue. 

Searing said these reforms “improve the financial bottom line for some hospitals” and keep them open longer, but people are still going without health coverage. 

“You’re really not solving the problem,” he said. “You’re just putting a Band-Aid on one aspect of it.”

The post Experts say Gov. Tate Reeves’ plan will help hospitals, but not uninsured Mississippians appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In this edition of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Stacey Trenteseaux, Executive Director of Opera Mississippi and a fantastic soprano opera singer.

Stacey talks about how she discovered her talent, her professional journey and tells about Opera Mississippi, the 9th longest continuously performing opera company in the United States.

The post Mississippi Stories: Stacey Trenteseaux appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Check out this week’s Marshall’s Mississippi newsletter and see a cartoon I drew about this very topic — during the Fordice/Musgrove years! Nothing is new under the sun.

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Buoyed by a series of tweets from State Auditor Shad White belittling certain liberal arts degrees as “garbage,” “useless” and “indoctrination factories,” a recent report from his office calls for Mississippi to change how it funds higher education by stripping public money from programs that don’t support the state’s economy in favor of those that do.  

But in an interview Friday afternoon, two days after the report was released, White said he could not think of any lawmakers who had reached out to him about setting up a committee — the report’s central recommendation — to study revamping higher education funding in Mississippi. 

“I’m wracking my brain,” he said. “Not a ton (have reached out) because it’s just been out for two or three days.” 

White said he expects some inquiries but his guess is that hard copies of the report, which were prepped for a number of powerful elected officials — the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house and members of key legislative committees — haven’t arrived in the mail yet. 

The state auditor’s office does not have policy-making power, so for now, White is reliant on champion lawmakers to turn his recommendations into reality. 

“I’m trying to think if a legislator has texted or called me,” White said. “I don’t recall any right offhand that specifically mentioned the report.” 

The eight-page report is part of a yearlong effort by the auditor’s office to propose solutions to Mississippi’s intractable “brain drain,” the phenomenon in which college-educated people leave the state for better-paying opportunities elsewhere, in effect subsidizing the economy’s of nearby states. 

If Mississippi could retain just a few more graduates seeking highly paid jobs like engineering, the report said it would be a multimillion-dollar boon to the economy. 

“State appropriations should focus on the degree programs our state’s economy values most,” the report states. “Otherwise, taxpayers will face the repercussions of an inadequate workforce and a declining population.” 

The brain drain is an issue that has concerned lawmakers across the political spectrum and, in recent years, led to bipartisan proposals in Mississippi to incentivize graduates to go into crucial fields, like teaching and nursing, that are experiencing dire shortages. 

State agencies already have some policies that take this into account. The Institutions of Higher Learning, which oversees public universities in Mississippi, evaluates programs based on the state’s workforce needs. The state’s community colleges are trying to expand workforce development programs.  

What White is proposing goes further. Though he is not advocating for “abolishing” certain degrees, White said it’s not enough to simply let the market guide Mississippi college students to degrees that lead to higher-paying jobs — which, by and large, is what’s already happening. 

Rather, state government intervention is necessary to ensure taxpayers are seeing a return on investment in higher education, White said. 

“What I’m suggesting is that we take a hard look at how we’re spending money, and we add more money to those programs of study,” he said, “by … taking those dollars away from programs of study that aren’t economically beneficial to taxpayers.” 

Toren Ballard, an education policy analyst at Mississippi First, said it’s important to understand that taxpayers are not really footing the bill for the state’s universities. This year, state appropriations comprised just 21.5% of IHL’s operating budget. 

As state funding for higher education has plummeted since 2000, the cost of tuition has ballooned, putting the onus on Mississippians to pay for college, leading them to choose career paths that help them afford it, Ballard said. That’s one reason he thinks the report’s recommendation is largely unnecessary, though he hopes it could lead to more funding for higher education. 

“I think we’re not giving enough credit to individual student decision making here,” Ballard said. 

Al Rankins, the IHL commissioner, seemed to agree. In a statement, he said it would “appear more productive” to address Mississippi’s brain drain by creating more career opportunities. 

“University students are adults who choose their majors based on their interests and career aspirations,” he said. “After graduating some choose to pursue opportunities in other states for a myriad of reasons outside of the control of our universities.” 

White said that when he was choosing his undergraduate major — political science and economics from the University of Mississippi — that he wished he had access to data showing what he could expect to make when he graduates. 

“If I had to think it over again, I would rethink majoring in political science,” he said. 

So what degree programs does Mississippi’s economy value most, according to the auditor? The report begins with a graph that measures value as a trade-off between the median income a graduate can expect to make and the likelihood they will stay in Mississippi. 

In the top-left corner of the graph are higher-paid graduates who are more likely to leave, like business and engineering degrees. The top-right corner shows higher-paid graduates who were very likely to stay, including health professions and teachers. “All other degree types” are largely in the middle. 

Right now, the report says, the state funds all those degrees at the same amount, even though some degrees cost more to offer. 

Ballard noted the report did not consider graduates who go directly to law school or medical school, potentially lowering the median income of majors like sociology that the auditor denigrated online. 

“That’s why engineering degrees look particularly good here,” he said. 

White said the goal of the report — and his social media posts — was not to be comprehensive but to “initiate a conversation around this question.” 

But that doesn’t mean he’s taking back anything he wrote. 

“I’m defending it,” he said. “I’m telling you that we have to address these ideas in a way that is plain and clear, and if you shroud it in technocratic jargon, nobody will care.” 

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