For those interested in studying in Mississippi, we have a very useful list. We selected the best Mississippi institutions for prospective students. Please know that rankings are based on academic research, alumni reviews, graduation rates, as well as assessment from peer colleges. On the page, you will find major admissions stats such as acceptance rate, tuition fees, average SAT scores for each ranked college or university.
| Rankings | Schools |
| 1 | University of Mississippi (University, MS) Tuition: in-state: $6,282, out-of-state: $16,266 Total enrollment: 18,224 Fall 2011 acceptance rate: 79.0% Average freshman retention rate: 81% 6-year graduation rate: 60% Classes with under 20 students: 47.4% SAT/ACT 25th-75th percentile: 20-27 |
| 2 | Mississippi State University (Mississippi State, MS) Tuition: in-state: $6,264, out-of-state: $15,828 Total enrollment: 20,424 Fall 2011 acceptance rate: 67.8% Average freshman retention rate: 83% 6-year graduation rate: 60% Classes with under 20 students: 35.6% SAT/ACT 25th-75th percentile: 20-27 |
| 3 | Jackson State University (Jackson, MS) Tuition: N/A Total enrollment: N/A Fall 2011 acceptance rate: 31.3% Average freshman retention rate: 74% 6-year graduation rate: 43% Classes with under 20 students: N/A SAT/ACT 25th-75th percentile: 17-20 |
| 4 | University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg, MS) Tuition: in-state: $6,336, out-of-state: $14,448 Total enrollment: 16,604 Fall 2011 acceptance rate: 63.2% Average freshman retention rate: 74% 6-year graduation rate: 47% Classes with under 20 students: 41.4% SAT/ACT 25th-75th percentile: 19-25 |
Modern History of Mississippi
In 1763, after winning the French and Indian War, Great Britain received all the French colonies located east of the Mississippi River. During the American Revolution, Spain supported the US in the war against Great Britain. Bernardo de Galvez, then Governor of Spanish Louisiana, captured Natchez in 1779. After the victory of the United States of America in the War of Independence, the territory of the modern state of Mississippi (as well as other British colonies) became part of the young state. However, the Spaniards, who also claimed the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, did not withdraw their troops from Natchez until 1798.
On April 7, 1798, the Mississippi Territory was created, which included the lands of the southern counties of Alabama and Mississippi. In 1802, after Georgia renounced its land claims in favor of the US federal government, the boundaries of the new territory were moved north to Tennessee. In 1812, the United States annexed a small area on the coast that had remained until then Spanish. On December 10, 1817, the US Congress decided to admit Mississippi to the state as the twentieth state.
In the early decades of the 19th century, cotton was the main (and extremely profitable) crop in Mississippi. Thousands of settlers rushed along the Natchez Trail, which connected Nashville in Tennessee with the southwest of the Magnolia State, the population of Mississippi grew from about ten thousand at the border of the 18th and 19th centuries to more than two hundred thousand in 1820. At the same time, mainly extremely fertile lands in the Mississippi River Valley (Delta) were settled, while the interior regions of the state remained undeveloped.
The prosperity of the cotton plantations was based entirely on the use of slave labor, in 1860 there were about four hundred and forty thousand black slaves in the state (more than half of the total population of Mississippi). By this time, a slave-owning elite had formed, out of about three hundred and fifty thousand white residents, only thirty thousand owned slaves, and only five thousand had more than twenty. In fact, it was these five thousand wealthy planters who determined the policy of the state. “King Cotton” also guaranteed the continued prosperity of Mississippi, so it is not surprising that here (as in other southern states) they reacted very negatively to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States and the policy of freeing slaves proclaimed by him.