Mississippi State University
Mississippi State University is located in Mississippi State, Mississippi. It is a public, 4-year or above institution.
From Wikipedia: Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university in Mississippi State, Mississippi. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity” and has a total research and development budget of $239.4 million, the largest in Mississippi. The university was chartered as Mississippi Agricultural & Mechanical College on February 28, 1878, and admitted its first students in 1880. Organized into 12 colleges and schools, the university offers over 180 baccalaureate, graduate, and professional degree programs, and is home to Mississippi’s only accredited programs in architecture and veterinary medicine. Mississippi State participates in the National Sea Grant College Program and National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program. The university’s main campus in Starkville is supplemented by auxiliary campuses in Meridian, Gautier, and Biloxi. Mississippi State’s intercollegiate sports teams, the Mississippi State Bulldogs, compete in NCAA Division I athletics as members of the Southeastern Conference’s western division. Mississippi State was a founding member of the SEC in 1932. In their more-than 120-year history, the Bulldogs have won 21 individual national championships, 30 regular season conference championships, and 1 national championship title. The school is noted for a pervasive baseball fan culture, with Dudy Noble Field holding 22 of the top 25 all-time NCAA attendance records and the school’s Left Field Lounge being described as an epicenter of college baseball.
Notes
These are items that bear looking into more closely.
- This institution’s six year bachelors graduation rate is 63.1%, so approximately 2/5 of undergrads who enroll do not earn a bachelors degree from here.
Overview of institution
This, and the rest of the page, use info from the most recent year available, generally 2023.
Institution kind: Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
Undergrad program: Professions plus arts & sciences, high graduate coexistence
Graduate program: Research Doctoral: Comprehensive programs, with medical/veterinary school
Enrollment profile: High undergraduate (see more details below)
Average net price for undergrads on financial aid: $15,364 . This is 80% the average cost of Harvard.
Actual price for your family: Go here to see what your family may be asked to pay. It can be MUCH lower than the average price but also higher for some.
Size and setting: Four-year, large, primarily residential
In state percentage: 58% of first year students come from Mississippi
In US percentage: 99% of first year students come from the US
Graduation rate (within 6 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 63.1% (this is what is usually reported as “graduation rate”)
Graduation rate (within 4 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 41.1%
Student to tenure-stream faculty ratio: 22.5 (undergrads to tenure-stream faculty) [Tenure explained]
Student to faculty ratio: 16.1 (undergrads to all faculty)
Degrees offered: Bachelor’s degree, Postbaccalaureate certificate, Master’s degree, Post master’s certificate, Doctor’s degree: research scholarship, Doctor’s degree: professional practice
Schedule: Semester
Institution provides on campus housing: Yes
Dorm capacity: There are enough dorm beds for 5333 students
Freshmen required to live on campus: No
Advanced placement (AP) credits used: Yes
Disabilities: 7.97 percent of undergrads are registered as having disabilities.
Map
Comparisons
The sections below show this institution compared with others. The ones listed are ones it has identified as peers, who consider themselves peers, and/or who the federal government considers peers. If a comparison school has the same value as the focal school, its cell is grayed out. In fields where there is a common view that higher (or lower) values are better, the best values are in blue, the worst values are in red. If there isn’t a sense of a particular value being better, values are shown in varying shades of green. Arrows show where there is a signficant trend over time for a school. You can swipe across the table to see more of it; the focal school column is always visible.
- Mississippi State University lists these schools as ones to compare itself within federal IPEDS data, and they do the same back: Auburn University, University of Arkansas, Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
- Mississippi State University compares itself to these institutions, but not vice versa: University of Georgia, Texas A & M University-College Station, North Carolina State University at Raleigh, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Clemson University, The University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Oklahoma State University-Main Campus
- These institutions compare themselves to Mississippi State University, but not vice versa: Florida State University, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Texas Tech University, University of Vermont, Iowa State University, The University of Alabama, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Louisiana Tech University, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Washington State University, University of St Thomas, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Texas State University, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, University of Mississippi, Northern Arizona University, Sam Houston State University, University of South Alabama, Rutgers University-Newark, Southern University and A & M College, Old Dominion University, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, University of New Orleans
Enrollment
General
Teaching
Tenure track faculty are those who are eligible for tenure. This includes both pre-tenure and tenured faculty. Once faculty get tenure, they are (generally) protected from being fired for intellectual reasons, helping to ensure their freedom in teaching and research. They can still lose their positions for misconduct, financial problems, not fulfilling their duties, or other reasons.
Non-tenure track faculty are not eligible for tenure. Some are hired one semester at a time, some have multi-year contracts. They typically have a higher teaching load than tenure track faculty, leaving less time for research or other creative endeavors. They are also easier to fire than tenured faculty. Sometimes they are external experts (a noted musician, a former senator) who are hired to teach some classes without the expected permanence of a tenure-track position.
Note that this chart uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.
Having a low student to faculty ratio is considered a good thing by many, as it can mean more individual attention.
Geography
This has information on the location of the institution. See the about page for more information on what the metrics are and how they are calculated.
Financial Aid
Graduation
Note these are bachelors graduation rates in six years, not four (this is standard). Sample sizes can be small for some demographic groups with few individuals in a school, leading to large year-to-year fluctuations and often extreme values for those groups (if there are two individuals in the class with a given identity, the possible graduation rates are 0%, 50%, or 100% depending on whether zero, one, or both students graduate within six years).
Library
Libraries are changing rapidly. Note that how institutions count digital collections may vary.
Diversity
The US Census Bureau has a diversity index that goes from 0 to 1. In their words, “A 0-value indicates that everyone in the population has the same racial and ethnic characteristics. A value close to 1 indicates that everyone in the population has different racial and ethnic characteristics.” This uses their formula, but with the resolution available for the federal IPEDS data (which does not separate for a given demographic group whether members identify as Hispanic or not). This metric is about heterogeneity within the population, not the proportion of the population that comes from historically excluded groups.
Following the practice of the census, the index is multiplied by 100 to give the percentage probability a random pair of individuals will have a different background. Most institutions argue that diversity is a benefit, so by default a higher number is listed as better, but there may be cases where this measure does not reflect the mission of a college (for example, 70% of the students at a tribal college or university may be American Indian: that could be low-scoring by this metric but should not be read as “bad” given the institution’s mission).
These numbers are based on the most recent year available, generally 2023, which predates effects of the US Supreme Court’s striking down of affirmative action. This has often changed, sometimes dramatically, the incoming student demographics at some institutions.
Overall diversity
Freshman profile
Demographic data for first time degree-seeking students. Note that this uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.
Freshman geography
Test scores
SAT scores
ACT scores
Majors
This presents information on the number of majors and the median earnings one and five years after graduation for people who got a degree from this institution in that field. The earnings are for those who are working and not enrolled in further education. The earnings data (from the federal college scorecard) also has information on earnings for those categorized as ‘MALE’ and ‘NOMALE’ – for readability, these are recategorized here as “Men” and “Women”, respectively, which adopts the gender binary used in other federal data. “W/M earnings ratio” is the median earnings of women divided by men, as a percentage.