Mississippi's brain drain: 'We've got to figure out how to keep our students at home'

Mississippi’s Higher Education Commissioner Glenn Boyce says access to public universities in the nation’s poorest state is “fantastic," but it's getting students to complete their degrees and to remain in the state after graduation that’s the challenge.

Boyce's remarks on Monday came ahead of the 2018 legislative session where state lawmakers will consider a recommendation from legislative leaders to cut funding for the state's universities by 4 percent for the 2019 fiscal year.

More: More Mississippi budget cuts proposed; leaders unapologetic

While Boyce didn't speak to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee's proposal directly, he noted that funds to the state college system should be viewed as investments.

"For every dollar invested, we grow the economy by $3.21," he said.

Speaking at a luncheon sponsored by the Stennis Institute of Government and the Capitol press corps, Boyce referenced a report commissioned by the state College Board that found 40 percent of graduates from the state’s public universities had left Mississippi five years after graduation.

More: IHL report: Education, nursing grads stay, STEM leaves

Reversing that trend, Boyce said, is critical to the state’s economic vitality. He cited a report by researchers at Georgetown University, projecting that by 2020, 65 percent of all jobs in the economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school.

Thirty-five percent of those job openings, according to the report, will require a bachelor’s degree, meaning that Mississippi, for which the Associated Press reported “census figures show only 29 percent of residents older than 25 have a two-year or four-year degree,” is behind the curve.

“If we don’t improve quick, fast and hard, we will not be able to compete in the future,” Boyce said. “I’m not sure we will be able to compete in the present.”

Although blunt about the state’s quandary, Boyce said there is reason for optimism. The rollout out of the state’s Compete 2 Complete program, an initiative launched in June aimed at people who attended college but left without earning a degree or certificate, he said, has been met with such interest that officials have slowed down some of their marketing efforts.

As of last month, the Associated Press reported 18 people had received bachelor’s degrees and another 50 had received associate degrees.

Boyce also praised early results for the Higher Education Legislative Plan for Needy Students, a financial assistance program geared toward low-income students, a group historically less likely to graduate due to obstacles such as accrued student debt, has seen an uptick in the number of recipients earning degrees. The degree completion rate for the HELP program, he said, is 81 percent.

More: Miss. colleges raise tuition again after budget cuts

After students graduate, the hurdle of keeping them in-state remains.

Boyce, a father of three, said two of his children left the state after receiving their degrees.

“We’ve got to figure out how to keep our students at home,” he said.

Key to that effort, he said, is workforce opportunities. And key to attracting employers, Boyce continued, is having a trained workforce.

Boyce, who grew up in rural, upstate New York, traced the evolution of the motor industry to illustrate his point. The higher education leader said the demand for workers in the industry had transitioned from simply wanting workers to operate machinery to a need for workers who could fix the machinery.

“But where is it next?” Boyce said. “I would love to be creating and making the machine.

“That’s where you really move the economy.”