According to College Navigator, Mississippi has eight public universities, eight private non-profit schools, and one private for-profit university.
Students who reside in the state of Mississippi paid an average of $8,870 per year during the 2021-22 school year.
Students who attended college for an undergraduate education for the 2020-21 school year received an average of $14,800 in financial aid for full-time coursework.
This list features some of the best brick-and-mortar schools in Mississippi. Each school featured is a nonprofit, accredited institution — either public or private — with a high standard of academic quality for post-secondary institutions. We included liberal arts colleges and research universities as well as small, midsize, and large institutions. Next, we compared this comprehensive list to a list of aggregated college rankings from reputable publications like the U.S. News & World Report among others to simplify a student’s college search. We pored through these rankings so students don’t have to.
The colleges on our list are accredited by either the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) or Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE). These reputable organizations examine the objectives, quality, and overall effectiveness of education programs in the United States.
We evaluated each school on tuition costs, admission, retention and graduation rates, faculty, and reputation as well as the student resources provided for on-campus students. Then we calculated the Intelligent Score on a scale of 0 to 100. Read more about our ranking methodology.
As a prospective college student, you can expand your career opportunities by exploring the top industries in Mississippi. For Mississippi, the fastest growing industries as of October 2021 were transportation and warehousing; leisure and hospitality; trade, transportation, and utilities; professional and business services; and financial activities.
When looking at potential careers and degree programs, it’s important to consider the fastest growing occupations in Mississippi for workers with a bachelor’s degree. These include microbiologists, petroleum engineers, clergy, operations research analysts, and fundraisers.
It’s also important to look at the largest employers in Mississippi. The University of Mississippi Medical Center is the largest employer with more than 10,000 employees. Other top employers include Nissan North America Inc., Beau Rivage Resort and Casino, Tempstaff, and RPM Pizza LLC, which all employ more than 3,000 employees each.
When exploring how to pay for a college education, it’s important to understand all of the available options. This list contains federal and state resources for undergraduates in the state of Mississippi.