State Auditor Shad White issued the following statement:
As of 2020, only half of all Mississippi’s public university graduates worked in the state three years after leaving college. Further, according to a report released today by State Auditor Shad White’s office, data trends show a growing number of college graduates choose to leave Mississippi as time passes. If the trends continue without being addressed, Mississippi’s “brain drain” is likely to worsen even as the state spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year on its public universities.
“This is a critical issue for Mississippi. As State Auditor, I wanted to understand how much we’re spending on university students and how many are staying here,” said White, “but as a Mississippian, I’m concerned about more than just the cost to taxpayers.”
In addition to showing the percentage of college graduates leaving Mississippi soon after graduation, today’s report also shows which universities and general degree programs are best and worst at producing future Mississippi residents. The report also shows where in the state our public college graduates have been most likely to work after leaving a public university in Mississippi.
“Brain drain forces us to ask questions like, ‘Will our state have enough nurses and doctors to care for the elderly in coming years? Are we keeping the future entrepreneurs who will build Mississippi businesses? Will grandparents be able to see their grandkids grow up?’” said White. “These questions show why brain drain is important to everyone.”
The report was produced after State Auditor Shad White requested data from the State Longitudinal Data System (SLDS)—a state-funded resource designed to evaluate workforce and education strategies in terms of real outcomes, such as entrance into employment, wages, and skill gains. The National Strategic Planning and Analysis Research Center (NSPARC) conducted data analysis on behalf of SLDS.
Aside from commissioning this report, the Office of the State Auditor has proposed its own solution for keeping auditing talent in the state. In February 2022, Auditor White announced the “Stay in the ‘Sip” Fellowship to combat the brain drain faced by the Auditor’s office. The fellowship pays for a portion of an accounting student’s university education if the student agrees to work in the Auditor’s office for a minimum of two years after graduation. Visit www.StayintheSip.com to learn more about the program.
Some excerpts from the report:
In 2020, only 50% of Mississippi’s public university graduates chose to work in the state three years after leaving college. As time passes, more college graduates will stop working for Mississippi companies. For example, fewer than 47% of all Mississippi public university graduates from 2008-2010 worked in the state by 2020—down from the 57% of those graduates who worked in Mississippi three years after leaving college. The data trends suggest substantially less than 50% of 2015-2017 graduates will be working for Mississippi companies by 2027. Moreover, an increasing number of graduates are choosing to not work in Mississippi at all. ..
Graduates of some public universities were more likely to stay and work in Mississippi than others. For example, over 70% of Delta State University (DSU), Mississippi University for Women (MUW), Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU), and University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) in-state graduates since 2008 worked in Mississippi at least 3 years after graduation. Fewer than 52% of 2015-2017 University of Mississippi (UM) in-state graduates and fewer than 58% of 2015-2017 Mississippi State University (MSU) in-state graduates held a job in the state by 2020. ...
For perspective, University of Southern Mississippi (USM) and MSU produced approximately half of all in-state graduates included in this analysis who worked in Mississippi three years after leaving college. ...
Academic programs were also analyzed to test whether graduates of certain programs were more or less likely to work in Mississippi after leaving college. Graduates of programs that train teachers, social workers, or nurses are most likely to work in Mississippi 3, 5, and 10 years after graduation. Graduates of physical sciences, philosophy/religion, foreign language, and engineering programs are least likely to work in Mississippi at any time after leaving college. ...
Some of Mississippi's political leaders say no brain drain exists. Savannah Smith reported in 2018 in the Oxford Eagle:
A State Auditor spokesman said the claim that only 56% of the graduates stay in Mississippi for at least three years includes the out-of-state students (See figure 1 in the report.). However, the percentage jumps up in figure 2 where out-of-state students are not included:Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves said that a big portion of the brain drain argument is not accurate.
“What you’re going to find in Mississippi is that…as some of our universities have significantly increased their out of state students…a large percentage of the students that are leaving Mississippi are students that came from out of state to go to school here,” said Reeves.
Speaker of the House Philip Gunn agrees that a lot of the students included in statistics about brain drain are ones from out of state.
“A lot of kids from out of state come into our state schools with no intent to ever stay here,” Gunn said. “They’re going to go back home.” Article
74 comments:
The Auditor's brain must have been drained when he decided to sit on all those text messages he got from Brett Favre, Gov. Bryant, and others when he "discovered" the largest embezzlement fraud after officials at MDHS reported it to him. Interesting how this brain drain report seems to be top of mind for him right now.
The best thing to do, if you went to stay here, is get a work from home job making higher than Mississippi-average salary. Then buy a house in a gated community within the city limits of a functional city like Flowood or Madison. Because no Madison-Rankin grand jury will indict you for defending yourself against an armed individual, with the wrong address, testing your home defenses in the middle of the night.
BTW high quality thermal night vision rifle scopes are an excellent investment. I have my breaker box in my bedroom so I can shut off the main power and blackout the entire property.
10:52. agree.
The reason I am leaving Mississippi is because even Chicago has a lower murder rate. That Ring Doorbell video from The Fondren was absolutely chilling.
They leave because good paying state and local government jobs go to kinfolk who donated. The brain drain is another phrase for it sucks here to normal functioning young adults and the PAY is better elsewhere. Now, DOESN'T SHAD HAVE BIGGER ISSUES TO BE DEALING WITH RIGHT NOW ? Issues like IDK ....every elected official in this state being dirty lowdown SOB's ? Oh sorry, he's more focused on welfare queens and borrowed county mowers.
Sorry if I find a hard time caring about anything Shad has to say after looking the other way for Bryant to steal money
Until the animosity towards Jackson stops at the Capitol, the brain drain will continue. There is no reason Jackson can't be its own version of Little Rock and Birmingham.
So...10:55 and 10:57 am...
Y'all think our young people are leaving the entire State because of crime and the murder rate?
No...tthey leave because they have neighbors like 10:53 who is an irrationally fearful ticking time bomb and corruption thankss to the locked in "good ole boy" network.
And, of course, the opportunities to advance a career year is far too dependent on social or political connections rather than ability and achievement.
Women live because the misogyny is still very dominant.
A woman doctor, a woman lawyer ,or government has a hard time unless she is submissive enough or attractive and manipulative enough.
10:55, you ok bud? Just checking.
The report emphasizes the importance of Jackson solving its violent crime & infrastructure problems. Turns out that 30% of those who stay in Mississippi wind up working in Jackson. The report says Jackson must do much better if the state has any hope of keeping graduates in state.
When was 10:55's last wellness check?
The Texas and Tennessee residents who attend Ole Miss (and there are many) have ZERO intention of ever working in Mississippi. Yet Mississippi taxpayers subsidize their tuition. Out of state tuition at Ole Miss is $25,776 for two semesters, 15 hours each semester. By comparison Univ Texas is @ $40,000 for out of state residents, and Univ Tennessee is @ $31,664 for non-residents. MSU has a similar situation, although fewer out of state students than Ole Miss.
Raise tuition for all out of state students significantly and immediately! They can all afford it -- just look at the cars they drive and the tens of thousands of dollars they spend on frat and sorority dues over four years.
Raising out of state tuition won't fix the brain drain problem since the non-residents will still leave MS immediately upon graduation, but at least we taxpayers wouldn't be giving them a heavily subsidized college education.
So, the Auditor will pay for part of someone’s education in exchange for two years of in-state employment so that by year three and beyond these same graduates can bolt for better jobs out of state? I’m not opposed to these pay-to-stay programs, at all. MS does very little in the way of financial aid for college students. But maybe offering more to stay longer than just two years would be more effective at slowing the exodus. Or maybe finding ways to halt the tremendous increase in the costs of a college education would lead less people to chase higher paying jobs out of state. College has become insanely expensive and all those loans have to be paid back somehow. I admire his initiative, but I just don’t think the Auditor’s solution will have much effect, nor will his continued studying of the brain drain problem. It’s not difficult to figure out why it is happening (money and opportunity).
Unless something happens to Phil, LaCoste, Farve, et al, I will not respect Shad any longer. Probably not the best time to deflect the situation while everyone in the state is seeing what has been exposed.
Also, not respecting the wishes of the people who voted for medical reefer, might have something to do with the youth moving out of state. The optics of how it went down are not very promising to people who "think" that they have a voice. And I don't even smoke the stuff. Wasn't changing the flag touted as forward thinking and people moving out of state used as a talking point at one time?
Regarding the OSA student loan program....
1) what about the state auditor employees who are already employed there and still paying down student loans? I'd be pissed.
2) what if I worked my way through college? Isn't that the kind of person you want to here at the OSA? You gonna give me a bonus equal to what my loans could have been?
3) a Millsaps grad and a public university grad will have vastly different loan balances. Shad is incentivizing bad financial choices.
Y'all do realize Mr. White has no prosecution powers, right?
This is called shuck and jive. In other words, run a bunch of columns in the paper til the Bryant thing blows over. Shad actually had two articles in the CL Sunday. Not that I get the CL, but it was accidentally delivered to me Sunday. The only two articles in the whole Sunday paper that were not AP feeds were two columns authored by, or about Shad. And neither really had anything to do with the constitutional duties of the OSA. Shuck and jive.
He may not have prosecution powers, but he does have the power to put it out in the open and expose it like the little fish skimming $5000 or so from local municipalities. He drops a press release on everything else, why not this? Hopefully the feds have him on a gag order and are working on it.
I'll say this, we have not had a state auditor in Mississippi that has been out in front of the media so openly since the days of Steve Patterson. :)
11:58, if you drive off the out of state students, there is less revenue to cover the fixed costs of the universities. You should have thought of that before the size of the universities doubled over the last 20 years. It's a little late now.
11:34 seems to have figured out all the different way "the system" is rigged against her.
I wonder is she, personally, really has it that hard, or if she's just trying to speak for everyone else.
The brain drain is not going to be fixed by giving loan forgiveness to state auditor employees. Are you going to turn down a Big 4 job in Dallas or Atlanta to take a state job in Mississippi making half as much?
Shad went to Harvard Law. I guess he was "too good" for a Mississippi law school. He's just chasing the prestige. he doesn't care about Mississippi.
Pelosi, Biden, Bernie Sanders....and Shad riding the loan forgiveness wagon.
It's a rural state. It's dominated by rural-thinking people. Young people looking for young lifestyles are not impressed by most of the state. Small town life is dominated by good ole boys and entrenched families who dominate everything and keep things moving at a snails pace to protect their turf. Young educated people are looking for something new and progressive not old and conservative and that ain't Mississippi. I am conservative, but I can see the handwriting on the wall. Most of the young college grads are going to look elsewhere until things change nationally, economically and socially.... and they will change.
PROVE ME WRONG:
Without a direct comparative interface with The Department of Employment Security's wage database (by Social Security number) and an accurate and current data base reflecting the Social Security numbers of every Mississippi college graduate by hometown, there is no way in hell the State Auditor can come up with such nonsense.
If there's any other way to come up with his conclusions, I'd like Shad to reveal it...short of paying some company up north to provide guestimates, estimates, unverifiable dart-board figures and SWAGs.
Employers who are legally obligated to track and report wages (and choose to do so) report wages paid by Mississippi Employers by Social Security number. This data winds up with MDES, not the State Auditor or some research firm. And there is no in-state tracking of wages paid in other states.
These data don't always reflect the wages of every working person. Some appear on wage reports in other states (corporate offices), some are living in this state and working in nearby cities in Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and their wages are not reflected by the Mississippi database maintained by MDES and would not interface with a state graduate database even if one existed.
Does Shad consider the thousands of graduates who simply matriculated here and went back to their home states or other states upon graduation? Does Shad consider the Mississippians who receive degrees in other states and come back home?
Or does the data simply suggest a graduate who left the state and further inaccurately conclude 'brain drain'? And if that's the case, what database (maintained by colleges) accurately reflects who left the state or stayed. Questionnaires filled out as graduation neared are meaningless. Nor are post-graduate follow-up forms churned out by colleges reliable.
Is the Auditor aware that people who become entrepreneurs (without other employees on a payroll) are NOT tracked by a state wage database (MDES)? The same is true for the graduates who return home and work at Dad and Mom's shop with no other employees. What if there are 2000 of these, in combination? Are they recorded as victims of a 'brain drain' or did they just vanish?
While we continue to tout our HBCUs, how would Shad know how many students from other states (and countries) are graduated at these three universities who either stay here or leave? And if he does know, how would he know how many are finding jobs (or not)? Short answer: He doesn't.
1) Unreliable data is useless.
2) Reliable data without a purpose has no utility.
2) Shadrack is out of his lane.
Lastly: Why is the Department of Audit spending taxpayer money on such meaningless-minutia-guesswork in the first place? Job existence is dependent on a trained/educated workforce. No state should be training or educating people for jobs that don't exist.
If the State Auditor wants to be in the job creation, industrial development or higher education business, he ought to resign and work in one of those fields. Somebody sure as hell needs to be closing down degree-mill programs that offer almost zero opportunity for productive employment. Let him suggest that and the higher-education people will run him out of town.
Why spend all that money on a Harvard degree to be a state employee in Mississippi?
Because he learned from the best on how to make bank as an elected official. His mentor was Phil Bryant. Of course, Phil went to Hinds.
Shad's Investigators are the LAW Enforcement officers on these state cases.
In the same way that a local police office CANNOT and WILL NOT release investigative materials before a pending criminal trial (nor would anyone argue they should be forced to make everything public prior to trial), the Auditor cannot (outside of his public audit reports) release gathered evidence to anyone but the D.A... the job of the prosecutor is to disclose the docs in Criminal Discovery. And that has happened here...
The fact that these text messages have been made public is likely as a result of an indicted person's criminal attorney using Ms. Wolfe as a proxy to disclose to the public a planned defense narrative.
All are supposedly subject to gag orders...
When the State Auditor releases things like this it makes me question if the state auditor knows what his job is.
My kid moved out of state. There were plenty of jobs, she simply didn’t want to live in Mississippi.
Why not?
The perception that it’s a backwoods and uneducated state. When she went to Holmes, she was enlightened.
The low pay.
Wanting to see other things.
She never planned on staying here after high school. And she hasn’t.
We should be far less concerned about the guy with his breaker-box mounted on his bedroom wall than we should be about Fred Flintstone at 11:34. My God! Who in hell would want to take that guy a plate at Thanksgiving?
I thought Shad had fixed this problem already when he announced an annual internship to be offered by his office?
It's actually long Covid Shad.
@12:23 (II) - True that! I was talking to a friend, who is a partner at one of the larger Mississippi CPA firms, and he said they had lost 4 CPAs in the past year to firms in other states. The CPAs went to Mississippi universities, passed the CPA exam, got the work experience, and then, bolted for higher paying jobs in North Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee.
Maybe I'm misremembering, but I seem tor recall not too many years ago there was a big push to attract out-of-state students, in the name of diversity.
12:10 is the libertarian version of a pie in the sky, green new deal leftist.
This guy needs to spend less time reading Mises, Hayek, and Bastiat and more time in the real world.
Shad is a fraud, just like his recent foray into the Air Force. It’s all about politics and public persona for this young man. It’s a checked box on his political resume.
Yes, I am a Veteran and call it like I see it.
My children all go to out-of-state universities. They told me early on they had no intention of living in Mississippi after college. Pretty disappointing considering they're all fairly smart, hardworking and conservative kids. They just don't see much opportunity or things to do to keep them here. Nashville, Atlanta, Dallas, parts of North Carolina and Virginia. Even, heaven forbid, Birmingham. There are plenty of other happening places in the South that are full of more fun and opportunity than Mississippi. It's hard to make a convincing argument for them to stay.
Breaker box in your bedroom. Like I believe that. Maybe in your singlewide.
@12:12 it’s the same thing KF is doing here. Deflection and distraction.
"No...tthey leave because they have neighbors like 10:53 who is an irrationally fearful ticking time bomb and corruption"
Uh, there is no one who posted on this thread at "10:53". I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
Better luck next time.
What is brain drain?
@1:15
I am not the original commentator but I live in a $300k home and for some reason my breaker-box is in the master bedroom closet. Is that unusual?
The report emphasizes the importance of Jackson solving its violent crime & infrastructure problems. Turns out that 30% of those who stay in Mississippi wind up working in Jackson. The report says Jackson must do much better if the state has any hope of keeping graduates in state.
First, focus on the other 70%.
Second, relocate government and healthcare outside of Jackson and Hinds County.
IRR on fixing Jackson to eliminate brain drain is ZERO.
12:23(III)
AGREED. Rhodes Scholar Ivory Tower. They're so educated by the forest that they can't see the trees that make up Mississippi's problems and solutions.
It's not that Missisisppi doesn't pump out Bachelors holders. It's that this state doesn't have the industry to retain them. I'm glad that I have stayed and found my wife. I thought I was going to be one of those that leaves.
1:39 : This blog sometimes. CNN. MSNBC. FOXNEWS (SANS TUCKER). Uncle Joe. Russia Russia Russia ....long covid......short covid......overall leadership....MSU and UM baseball.......local spring storm coverage....price of fuel....200 dollar in grass seed that won't germinate.....worthless contractors......
12:37 pm
You write very well but you don't understand how to acquire or extrapolate data from existing sources or how to recognize reliable statistics from unreliable statistics.
The information posted by the Auditor could be acquired from government data bases as well at college and university data bases.
One doesn't have to create a study from scratch.
I suspect it's been a very long time since you graduated. Research is easier and faster. But,also degrees have become more specialized. I'd guess your chosen focus didn't require more than a simple research project to test the basics. If you were in medicine, you didn't design research outside your specialty or else you might not have ever prescribed some of the drugs you have that were taken off the market.
I Googled and the best I can tell Alabama and exactly burning it up and is only keeping approximately 51%.
If you'll take the time to look it up we're actually "middle of the pack" at retaining grads. This sounds like just another way to piss off mo money.
3:42, thank God for Alabama right. Same thing Arkansas says about Mississippi.
Brain drain here I am 64 with a drained brain and I have sense enough to take my 13 check with me out of state.
They are becoming liberals in college. The larger cities are more welcoming to their needs and pay better. Now what we lose in grads we more than make up in blue haired fatties coming in from Austin.
Britney Spears is pregnant and Deputy Phil is the whistleblower.
Shout the preceding loudly three times and click your heels together and you too could soon believe that Phil picked Shad for State Auditor because Phil believed Shad was the best qualified.
Boy wonder is grasping straws. He posted the retention rates by major on Facebook. Looks like we are not retaining philosophy majors and theatre majors statewide. All 17 of them.
Great use of professional auditors.
The Attorney General's prosecutors know nothing about auditing, that's the job of the State Auditor. When the State Auditor finds wrongdoing with public funds, he presents his findings to the Attorney General for prosecution, and where merited, the AG prosecutes. Here, though, based on Anna Wolfe's investigation, the State Auditor had before him clear evidence of Governor Phil Bryant's criminal activity but the Auditor chose to cover it up. The Auditor has been found out, and now he is trying to gaslight us by talking about anything but his own malfeasance.
3:42 tells me this: "you don't understand how to acquire or extrapolate data from existing sources or how to recognize reliable statistics from unreliable statistics. The information posted by the Auditor could be acquired from government data bases as well at college and university data bases."
That's my point exactly, Einstein. Those data bases do not exist that are set up to integrate and merge the data related to wages, graduation by location and residence following graduation. I gave the example of how it would work given certain circumstances that do not exist, yet you seem to speculate (without knowing) that the capability DOES exist. Give evidence.
It is not legal for the MDES to hand over to Shad White or a research agent its database of wages earned by Social Security number. And if the examples I gave you regarding multiple colleges being able to co-mingle graduate data by Social Security number and where they work after graduation...that would not be an easy task to master. You seem to suggest (without knowing) that the ability exists and has been exercised. Give evidence.
You made a claim that you need to verify before floating it. You claimed that existing data bases that house all of this needed information, do exist. And one might infer you are suggesting all of that merging of (un)available data is taking place and has produced reliable data on which accurate conclusions are made.
Other than suggesting that Shad's revelation MIGHT BE POSSIBLE given certain circumstances (which was the very basis of my original post), you did nothing more than lob a few silly insults.
Back up your claims or get off the pot. Shad had produced nothing more, in this case, that guesswork and he paid somebody else to arrive at the guesses.
The "Brain Drain" is due to people being smart enough to see what is happened in Jackson and other Dim-O-krat cities and know it's only going to happen to the whole state somewhere down the road, so it's time to get the hell out of Dodge.
Jackson will never be another Little Rock or Birmingham because the citizens are unteachable and just plain stupid.
I don't see normal population shifts, necessarily, as brain-drain. Name the skills/knowledge acquired in any Mississippi University that represents a 'drain' when the holder of it moves across a state line?
We should salute holders of non-marketable degrees when they decide to leave the nest and move to a condominium apartment still within a day's drive of mom's kitchen. What have we lost?
Name a skill needed in this state that we would have if not for a few college grads heading for what they think are greener pastures. Name one!
Birmingham? Who the hell wants to emulate that crap-hole? Atlanta, Little Rock, Memphis, Dallas, Miami, Nashville? Tell me which of those crap-holes is better than Jackson when it comes to anything.
Somebody posted earlier that his daughter left the state when she got a glimpse of real opportunities and bright horizons at Holmes Junior College ! WTF? Take a ride up to Goodman. Now there's a place to set up housekeeping and raise a family. Or did he mean Ridgeland, the check cashing and apartment capital of the state?
If 'brain drain' is even a real thing, identify it! What skills are we losing? Shad is not only out of his lane, he's slobbering inaccurate information and ill-based conclusions when we hired him to investigate corruption.
The young folks are leaving because they have the sense to see that the Republican leadership of this state doesn’t have their best interest at heart and do not properly plan for growth. Look at Madison anything you want to bring to the city has to meet the Mary Test! Major retails refuse to be forced into overly expensive buildings and facades. The county isn’t any better improvers to Bozeman and Yandell roads should be completed not just getting to the drawing board.
From a right of center millennial- It's all about the culture, it is terrible is MS. Unless that is a part of the brain drain and depopulation discussion, then you are just whistling Dixie.
Mississippi is hopelessly stuck in the past and is consistently rated the worst place to live based on all the data available- education, poverty, median household income, etc. The state only removed the confederate symbol due to bad PR and the threat of losing NCAA events. How absurd and embarrasing! What young person wants to be associated with that?
There is no hope for MS, accept that the state is an agriculture dependent ultra conservative bible belt craphole that will never be able to compete with vibrant cultural hubs such as Austin and Nashville. The ignorant rednecks run this state and will never allow it to change.
I live in a conservative suburb of Austin and the quality of life is fantastic! Work and play in Austin, live in suburbia north of town. Never been happier and will never return to the dump known as MS.
My children all go to out-of-state universities. They told me early on they had no intention of living in Mississippi after college. Pretty disappointing considering they're all fairly smart, hardworking and conservative kids. They just don't see much opportunity or things to do to keep them here. Nashville, Atlanta, Dallas, parts of North Carolina and Virginia. Even, heaven forbid, Birmingham. There are plenty of other happening places in the South that are full of more fun and opportunity than Mississippi. It's hard to make a convincing argument for them to stay..........................
The "Brain Drain" is due to people being smart enough to see what is happened in Jackson and other Dim-O-krat cities and know it's only going to happen to the whole state somewhere down the road, so it's time to get the hell out of Dodge.
Jackson will never be another Little Rock or Birmingham because the citizens are unteachable and just plain stupid.................
I don't see normal population shifts, necessarily, as brain-drain. Name the skills/knowledge acquired in any Mississippi University that represents a 'drain' when the holder of it moves across a state line?
We should salute holders of non-marketable degrees when they decide to leave the nest and move to a condominium apartment still within a day's drive of mom's kitchen. What have we lost?
Name a skill needed in this state that we would have if not for a few college grads heading for what they think are greener pastures. Name one!
Birmingham? Who the hell wants to emulate that crap-hole? Atlanta, Little Rock, Memphis, Dallas, Miami, Nashville? Tell me which of those crap-holes is better than Jackson when it comes to anything.
Somebody posted earlier that his daughter left the state when she got a glimpse of real opportunities and bright horizons at Holmes Junior College ! WTF? Take a ride up to Goodman. Now there's a place to set up housekeeping and raise a family. Or did he mean Ridgeland, the check cashing and apartment capital of the state?
If 'brain drain' is even a real thing, identify it! What skills are we losing? Shad is not only out of his lane, he's slobbering inaccurate information and ill-based conclusions when we hired him to investigate corruption.
The aforementioned comments are what permeate the ethos of social media in Mississippi. The one thing that EVERYONE agrees on, regardless of political ideology, is how f*cked up this place is. You got the Governor telling people to leave if they don't like it, then sits looking like a deer staring at headlights when he's given tangible data that we are the only state in the Sunbelt region losing residents.
Here's the kicker!? This place is not a hard fix!? It's actually a blank slate in regards to what direction it wants to go in the 21st century? The state is already at rock bottom, so the only place to go is up, it's just when will the people ever get tired of being the laughing stock of America!?
Mississippians need to stop being their own worse enemies.
Baton Rouge and Shreveport are boring and they attract young talented people. One thing I notice about them is that despite the negatives, both have very supportive coalitions that embrace the diversity in each city. Also they have local publications that promote the cities every chance they get rather than trashing them. Here in Mississippi it’s all about separation and exclusion. The proliferation of academy schools here is the worst thing that could of happen to this state. It is the main cause of division amongst us and it’s dumb down the state.
@10:00 AM
I find it funny that the red towns/cities are doing fine. They all have good schools, high passing/graduating numbers and better than average individuals heading to college.
Our roads are very drivable and neighborhoods are clean and safe. Law enforcement doing their jobs by putting criminals in jail and competent District Attorneys prosecuting them. Taxes actually being used as they should for updating things like oh lets say "things like water systems".
Businesses moving in and providing services & items that can benefit "working" people, meanwhile blue sections continue to implode and drive away investor & customers.
It's a shame that a lot of people can't remember the last time that they went to Jackson for anything other than maybe a medical appointment. I know it's been 25+ yrs since I've eaten there.
Jackson was doomed the day Democrats showed up and started buying votes with giveaways and it continues today with them destroying city after city. It will get to a point that there will be nothing left to dumb down or giveaway.
9:38 is right. I too am a millennial who left Mississippi, not because of pay or crime or infrastructure, but because everything in Mississippi is about identify politics and culture wars.
Part #3 dropped today.
A person could read this latest and start to wonder if the auditor might be Phil's huckleberry in real life.
@ 11:29am - it'll be a miracle if Kingfish posts my response but...............
You said, "I find it funny that the red towns/cities are doing fine. They all have good schools, high passing/graduating numbers and better than average individuals heading to college. Our roads are very drivable and neighborhoods are clean and safe. Law enforcement doing their jobs by putting criminals in jail and competent District Attorneys prosecuting them. Taxes actually being used as they should for updating things like oh lets say "things like water systems".
Businesses moving in and providing services & items that can benefit "working" people, meanwhile blue sections continue to implode and drive away investor & customers."
I will counter you by saying this, there are blue cities in the deep south that are able to do what the surrounding suburbs of Jackson are claiming they are doing now.
Madison and Rankin county were blank slates and that's all-new development, so it's easy to tote on how well things are now. Let's see how long it is sustainable as people leave those areas to move out of state or just relocate to whiter areas (i.e. look at Ridgeland, Mississippi)
People keep making this a Democrat/Republican or Liberal/Conservative debate - when it comes to all things local political ideology really shouldn't mean squat - because at the local level - both groups want good roads, clean drinking water, both groups want good schools, and both groups want access to great shopping options and entertainment outlets and venues.
We are stuck in this stupid war of attrition between the suburbs and the city, a culture war, and no one wants to be the bigger person in squashing that animosity between the two groups. At the end of the day, we are all Mississippians regardless of our finances, political beliefs, or where we live.
I will keep saying it, Mississippians are their own worse enemies.
Albeit it’s been a few years since, but I was a Tennessee resident who went to UM on a scholarship that covered my regular tuition costs, and automatically waived any out of state tuition (which was 5 times as great an amount). I met my future wife there, and have had a professional career in MS ever since…
8:09, Shad is way off base on this. Totally out of his lane. But damn, what a question, what skills are we losing? We are losing most of the engineering, accounting and other college educated professional talent that we produce. We are retaining those who can’t afford to leave or don’t have the grades. Come on man, that was a stupid question.
"At the end of the day, we are all Mississippians regardless of our finances, political beliefs, or where we live".
Yes, but there are "old" Mississippians, and there are "new" Mississippians that are very different breeds of people - Thank God. And the old ways of thinking about Mississippi are dying faster every day.
Sadly, all I hear millineals saying is this: "If Mississippi would just get 'woke', become more liberal, open up to the predominant American cultural revolution, embrace and own it's guilt, lead the nation in reparations...its problems would self-resolve and young people would return and dance on streets of gold".
What you lettuce-heads don't understand is our response to that is 'Fuck That!'.
Stay in the burbs of Baltimore, Nashville, Austin and Boise...and keep texting dad hoping he'll continue paying the note on your BMW.
@ 6:38, who said..."But damn, what a question, what skills are we losing? We are losing most of the engineering, accounting and other college educated professional talent that we produce."
So, a few engineers leave the state. Can you reveal data related to Mississippi's engineering shortage by type, concentration and license?
So, a few accountants leave the state. Can you reveal anything related to accounting jobs going unfilled in the state (not counting the two in Shad's office)?
Including 'other' in your response doesn't answer the question. Try harder.
@ April 13, 2022 at 5:35 AM
"So, a few engineers leave the state. Can you reveal data related to Mississippi's engineering shortage by type, concentration and license?"
It's not that simple. We need to stop saying "so" when we make investments to train people, that we hope will stay and put back into our infrastructure and economy. Basically, loses that investment that was paid into training that individual.
State agencies like the Mississippi Department of Transportation, the Department of Environmental Quality - pay heavily when they lose talent like that. Or when Mississippi State and Jackson State give full rides to their engineering programs, we lose that return on investment, in regards to what we are putting into educating and training workers, then that person and those students go to work in another state. That's a lose/lose scenario for Mississippi.
9:42 (you're responding to me). I totally agree. But the point of the thread was to reveal that this state is hemorrhaging talent, which it is not. You changed the subject emphasis to one of economics. State agencies (such as you mention) employ very few of the total number of engineers working in this state. And Mississippi State (with a fine program) cranks out far more than this state can put to work.
We should have, years ago, dealt with redundancy among college degree programs but for obvious reasons, racial chief among them, we allowed too many redundant programs on various campuses. Our outdated 'certificate of need' program should have been transferred over to education. And every college president who allows meaningless degree programs should be tied to the gates at the campus entrance with molasses poured over him/her.
Here's a question college chancellors should ask every time he hands a diploma to somebody walking the stage: "Is the document I am handing this young man/woman readily marketable in this state?"
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