Jackson Jambalaya

Association is not causation. Sid never learns.

We're not interested in your liberal math.

We're going to lower taxes and eliminate regulations until companies decide they don't need a trained workforce, decent schools, decent roads, or cities worth living in.

There are lots of companies like these, and any day now, they'll all come flooding into Mississippi. As opposed to, say, Mexico.

Any day now.

Can someone please help Sid make his point?

Our state spends less on higher education than surrounding states yet costs less. MS per capita income is lower. MS cost of living is lower.

Mississippians leaving to go to surrounding states often pay out of state tuition which is considerably higher.

What you point?

College tuition is outrageous. Look at the campuses that some of the schools are building on the backs of the students who can't afford to pay tuition and who can't repay federal student loans.

Colleges are all about the money and they make no attempt to tell students the likelihood of success in a chosen field or whether or not their degree will equate to higher earnings.

The majority of kids should concentrate on work/life skills that will better prepare them for life, leave them with less debt and provide more stability. Problem is that in our society the higher education institutions have brainwashed everyone into thinking that college degree=success.

Whatever you are paying, you pay too much for these Sid Salter articles.

The real point to my mind is the number of private and public institutions of higher learning in Mississippi given the population and students.

8:43 Expect everything to be cheaper in Mississippi, cost of living etc. Supply and demand dictates that what is not in demand will be cheap. I don't think we should be so proud of our low cost of living. That's our selling point to the rest of the country? We should be trying to add value to our state institutions rather than keeping them cheap. Yesterday was another step backwards.

Mississippi higher ed can move no faster than Ole Miss moves forward since the role of the Board is to maintain the status quo pecking order with Ole Miss as the "flagship". If the flagship is slow, the fleet is slow. The flagship of Mississippi is a rowboat compared to the luxury liners and speedboats of other states. Believe it or not we still have people who think Ole Miss is moving too fast. Hopeless.

Public higher education in MS is downright inexpensive. Private higher education in Mississippi is downright inexpensive. Students from surrounding states who don’t want to come HERE for higher education aren’t taking advantage of basic economics. Pay less for equal or better.

Furthermore, loan default rates for MS private colleges is very low. Don’t compare them to a for profit or northeast liberal arts place.

Ayers v. Fordice

The local school boards ALWAYS raise the millage rate. And, the various boards of supervisors ok it!!
The power to tax is the power to oppress

Has Salters ever had to sweat for a living?

It would seem that the average starting salary as well as average lifetime income of grads who pursue careers in a field related to their degree would be a better measure of the cost effectiveness of the monies spent as well as the "market worthiness" of the degrees from Mississippi's and neighboring states' public university systems. A related measure would be the number of grads who remain in their state and pursue a career in a field related to their degree. Spending public monies to provide students with degrees of little or no in-state (or in any state) market value is simply not an economically-reasonable expenditure in today's economy (and even less so in a state with the huge economic issues facing Mississippi). Put another way, it makes no economic sense to use public money to provide a student with a BA in English Lit only to have them become a welder, plumber, chef, etc., or worse, a state employee in an occupation totally unrelated to their state-funded degree.

I have no idea what the numbers would reveal so I will not make any observations regarding Mississippi's or any other states' state university public monies expenditure.

I thought I could do it this time, but yet again I've failed: I tried making it past the first sentence of a Sid Salter column.

One reason college tuition is so high is that the Feds got into the college loan program and made all this money available to the students which in turn made it available to the colleges. Thus the colleges have more money than ever before, expand into areas they shouldn't be in, and charge more than they should because the money is out there.

We have the best tutors that money can buy!

Well said 8:48am and 10:01am.

Mississippi education serves no other purpose but to churn BILLIONS of state and federal dollars into a select few hands while creating a perception of "achievement". Young people are being extorted to take more classes than they actually want to(so the college can capitalize on their financial aid), while also being outright gouged with bullshit "fees" out the ass to balance the budgets of floundering institutions that overspent for the last ten years.

The MDE and IHL are just corrupt cabals, and the majority of citizens just voted for more of the same players to lead the state it in the same direction - Reeves, Hoseman, Fitch. All three dedicated to keeping Mississippi what it seems it will always be as long as they are allowed to quietly maintain their "heritage" of hate that is the heart of Oxford.

Until enough racist old men and their white trash hag wives start to die off, Mississippi will be majority dirt dumb, redneck racists waving their battle flag high and proud. The votes prove it.

My takeaway from this is that Sid is saying that Tate is full of sh#t.

So is Sis Salter still the PR mouthpiece for MSU?

Welp - yu can pay a tutor to take all your tests at one academic institution and not be expelled from school - so there's that.

After reading the comments, I am appalled by the poor reading comprehension skills of most of those commenting.

Most of you seemed to think that Sid is doing anything other than stating the obvious in the next to last paragraph...neighboring schools are spending more, tuition and fees are higher and they offer more scholarships and tuition support. Their per capita income, and education rates are improving and their poverty rates are decreasing.


Sid did not say that spending more money is the only variable.

He is simply sharing information and hoping you'll be curious enough to test this information against your current beliefs.

And, you all seemed to ignore the most disturbing data in paragraphs 3 and 4. While it's somewhat encouraging that the high school graduation rate is improving, the fact is that we are an undereducated (and under skilled) population that will not attract business that can improve our per capita incomes no matter how much we reduce taxes. Our college drop out rate is way too high which suggests that those who graduate may be poorly prepared.

But the bottom line is continuing to do as we've been doing is getting us nowhere.


My observation is that undereducated people are threatened by those who are educated and their insecurity leads them to a dysfunctional defense of their lack of education. They have the false notion that educated people " look down" on them. This is crazy as educated people value the skills and experiences of others whether they have a degree or not. The only people an " educated" person looks down on is those who are unwilling to learn or try to improve their circumstances and whose behavior is disruptive and dysfunctional to themselves and others. An educated person gets that life is not fair and we can't pick our genetics. What we admire is those who do the most with the genes they've been given and who can see the world doesn't revolve around them.

We live in a time where too many believe their "gut" is more valuable than expertise in any subject. A smart person knows what they don't know and is willing to consider the value of information from someone who has studied the subject at hand. That does not mean you have to agree without confirming the information independently, but that so many of you are believing myths and cons that it's bodes ill for all of us.

In other news, 102.9 percent of Mississippi columnists can't add.

8:35 In the words of our beloved former governors, You must be a communist
outside agitator.

@8:35 My observation is anyone dropping 407 words of anonymous sanctimony loves to flap their gums and listen to themselves talk.

My only question is:

How does Sid Salter compare with neighboring states?

@8:35 Classic example of an "educated" Mississippian....quite skilled at talking a lot, without actually saying anything meaningful. It's a disease in Mississippi that does make them look "down" on others.....and they have no idea how truly vapid they are.

To 8:35AM:

Your comments confuse "an education" with a college/university degree and the lack of such a degree as being "not educated." An employable and competent welder, plumber, electrician, construction worker, equipment operator, ship-fitter, etc. does not really need any college education, much less a degree. They need education and training in their trade, a vocational education as it is sometimes called.

There are lots of folks whose college degrees are all but worthless in the marketplace (and such degrees can be had at Mississippi schools as well as Ivy League schools), so merely having any ol' college degree isn't a guaranteed path to a job much less a guaranteed path to being able to support oneself or a family. No state needs more folks educated and with degrees in unmarketable areas of study and no state's taxpayers ought to be paying for such educations and degrees.

In a state with the educational issues of Mississippi, we ought to be more concerned with educating our kids commensurate with their ability and the marketplace, not some nebulous ideal about all kids having some sort of college degree/education. Does it make sense for taxpayers to help pay for a outstanding student with real promise to get a STEM degree? Yes, with the possible caveat that they agree to at least attempt to remain in the state for X years. It makes no sense for taxpayers to pay for some useless degree for the kid to move out of state and become a waitperson in some trendy restaurant while Uber'ing as a side hustle.

Admittedly anecdotal as to a college degree being necessary to financial success, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Ralph Lauren all dropped out of college and did pretty well. On the other hand, Jim Cramer (CNBC) got an undergrad degree (HC '77, government) from Harvard (magna cum laude), became a reporter, went back to Harvard, got his JD ('84), and became a stockbroker. The company he co-founded and of which he was COB (TheStreet) went from a value of about $1.7 billion to recently being sold for about $17 million. What brings him to mind is that he has been touting the company and stock of Ulta Beauty (ULTA) for quite a while...the stock is getting killed at this very moment, down about 30% today.

11:34 am I am not confusing anything but am sticking to the topic.

Many of my most successful relatives did not receive a formal education beyond public high school but they believe in education and my grandmothers were reading Shakespeare and philosophers and my grandfathers were studying modern techniques in their fields by checking out books at the public library. They continued to learn and work hard. So, I'm well aware that a college education isn't for everyone or needed by everyone but knowledge is! Knowing what you need to know and knowing what you don't IS. And, listening to those who actually have knowledge and experience IS.

Did you know that into the late 80's our Junior and Community Colleges were graduating more welders than there were jobs for welders and 3 times more LPNs than there were jobs ? Worse they were accepting students they knew could not succeed to get Pell grants for tuition?

The skills courses improved when our construction business began to work with our community colleges. And, when our hospitals also began to do the same. I first raised those possibilities ( it had been done successfully elsewhere) but it took a decade for the idea to get to those with the clout to make it happen.

And, those who attended junior colleges had to retake some courses when they transferred to a State supported college even when they made an A the first time. Worse, there had been a yearly party at the Broadwater to " discuss" curriculum cooperation between the junior colleges and IHL. It was and is still too much about money and the old boy system and having political crumbs to spread about to supporters.

I hope there has been some more improvements since I was involved in trying to improve the system. God knows they were needed.

In a State with the population smaller than quite a few U.S. cities , we have more State supported junior and community colleges and IHLs than several States with a larger population? Not only that but the appointed trustees of junior colleges can raise your mileage rate. And, your tax dollars paid for campuses we didn't need.

But, let the word " consolidation" be spoken and suddenly sports fans go nuts...even though that didn't change competition in other States. God forbid we should take advantage of " economies of scale" or what you might think of as buying in bulk. No need to have our computer systems in sync, right? Communication and coordination isn't important? Little fiefdoms work best?


Education should be about priorities and what works best for our young people, the taxpayer and the State, not about who gets the political spoils or who gets to be the big fish in the tiny pond.

And, 10:19 am If you were well educated, you'd be aware that you should be embarrassed that you have to resort to " killing the messenger" since you can't dispute the message.

Sid, maybe it'd be a good idea to look at the employment rates of graduates at every level of education and school in Mississippi.