September 2, 2011
(JACKSON, Miss.) —More and more students are choosing Jackson State University to pursue degrees. This fall, Jackson State announced an enrollment of 8,903 students, which is a 2.5 percent increase over last year and the largest student body in JSU’s history.
“Jackson State offers a high quality education at an affordable price,” said Carolyn W. Meyers, JSU president. “Our faculty and staff care and work hard to prepare students.
“I’m happy to see more students are choosing Jackson State and am confident that we will continue to serve an increasing number of students. Education will continue to play vital role in Mississippi’s future.”
Freshman Lawanda Tabor of Chicago chose Jackson State from among the 27 schools where she was accepted.
“I picked JSU because in my major of psychology, JSU is ranked in the top 25 in the country,” she said.
The enrollment increase comes on the heels of a new report by Washington Monthly magazine ranking JSU among the top 10 colleges and universities in the nation. The ranking considers JSU’s social mobility, research and service ratings. Coming in at No. 9 among 258 institutions, Jackson State outranked Princeton (No. 31), Yale (No. 39), the Georgia Institute of Technology (No. 54) and Howard (No. 73) universities. Jackson State is the only Historically Black College or University to break into Washington Monthly’s top 10.
The research rating measures the rate at which students go on to receive Ph.D.s, the number of doctoral degrees awarded by the university and the amount of federal research dollars garnered. Last year Jackson State raised over $57 million research dollars.
In addition to the academic offerings, the enhanced facilities are receiving rave reviews. The city’s only new release movie theater, located inside JSU’s Student Center, will start showing premier movies free to students this month.
Also, JSU’s Dining Services has added the popular food chains Pizza Hut and Chick-fil-A to its offerings. Both are open from Sunday through Friday. The newly renovated coffee shop, Java City, is open daily at the H.T. Sampson Library.
Expanded development along John R. Lynch Street includes Gallery 1 at One University Place, which is the first business to open in the JSU development. Gallery 1 showcases the work of Jacksonians and other artists from across the country and includes pieces from the university’s archives.
– JSU –
About Jackson State University: Challenging Minds, Changing Lives
Jackson State University, founded in 1877, is a historically black, high research activity university located in Jackson, the capital city of the state of Mississippi. Jackson State’s nurturing academic environment challenges individuals to change lives through teaching, research and service. Officially designated as Mississippi’s Urban University, Jackson State continues to enhance the state, nation and world through comprehensive economic development, health-care, technological and educational initiatives. The only public university in the Jackson metropolitan area, Jackson State is located near downtown, with three satellite campuses throughout the city. For more information, visit www.jsums.edu.
Jackson State University News Room 
One of the best post I have ever seen on any site. Great and to the point writing!
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For the purpose of openness, “the last comment” was from a current JSU student. One who chose JSU over scholarships at other state schools, and nice offers at out of state ones had he wanted it. I don’t have anything against JSU (presumably apparently, by my attendance), I simply found the first article siting the study misleading. My comment was originally written for the school newspaper, but the slot I was seeking had already been filled days before completion of my article, so I posted it online.
Sounds like the last comment was an Ivy League graduate. What I found through life, trial, and error is that the true formula of success is finding what makes you happy and putting in work, time, and effort. The aforementioned formula is not incumbent on what school was attended but the work done while there. I’ve been accepted into a Ph.D program and I interviewed against or with people from prestigious Ivy League schools. The Only thing that mattered was my ability to convey a point.
On August 30, 2011 the JSU homepage posted an article with the headline “Jackson State University outranks Yale, Princeton in national study”. As a proud supporter of JSU, I eagerly clicked on the link to find out the ways in which we had triumphed over such prestigious schools. Unfortunately, I am no longer excited. After reading the article, checking the study’s results, and going over the methodology used to reach said results, I was upset at how misleading the articles title had been.
Here are my issues with the article. For starters, the study, conducted by The Washington Monthly, did give us a higher overall score than both Yale and Princeton, but that is almost entirely based on the fact that last year we graduated more students than their formula expected us to.
Lets break down the results. When it came to the amount of research expenditures, Princeton spent $152 million more than us and Yale spent a whopping $444 million more. When it came to how many of our Bachelor’s degree recipients went on to earn their PhD’s we ranked 165th, compared to Princeton’s 7th and Yale’s 5th. According to the study we awarded 20 science and engineering PhD’s last year while Princeton awarded 255 and Yale 261. The trend continues through the majority of the areas compared in this study.
The areas where we scored higher than the two were in the size of our ROTC department in relation to the size of our student body, the amount of work study funds spent on service (in which we ranked higher than Yale), community service participation and hours served, and the final area, service staff, courses (that require community service) and financial aid support.
Really? Financial aid support? Now, my dealings with financial aid have always been pleasant, but I get the impression from other students that most people are not as fortunate as I when dealing with them. And those are the areas in which we are boasting about beating Yale and Princeton? Community service is wonderful, as is the size of our ROTC department, but when I graduate from JSU and compete for jobs with graduates of Princeton and Yale, my potential employers aren’t going to be asking us whose school had the largest ROTC department. They also won’t be asking how many of my school’s work study dollars went to service. Somehow, I get the feeling that they won’t care about my dealings with our financial aid department either.
But wait, those of you who were paying attention might have noticed that I have left out the details of one category in my argument- the category in which we ranked 3rd compared to Princeton’s 79th and Yale’s 27th. That category is how many students we graduated compared to how many the formulas used in the study expected us to. Jackson State had an expected graduation rate of 27% with an actual graduation rate of 47%. That’s a huge difference. But why is it so big? Was the study formula really that flawed? It turns out that the formula used for the study, based on entering SAT/ACT scores and the amount of students receiving Pell Grants, was more accurate for all but 6 other schools! The implications of that fact could be tremendous. Does that mean that JSU is graduating many students who shouldn’t be? Does it mean that our standards are much lower than expected? Or is it simply an error in calculations? I don’t know, but regardless of the difference in expectations and outcome, we’re still in the bottom 25% when it comes to graduation rates. I don’t care what’s expected of you, that’s nothing to brag about.
JSU is a wonderful school and I’m proud to be a student here, but I think we should accept this study’s results with a large dose of humility. As Scripture says, “Haughtiness [comes] before a fall.”
Peace. Well written sir. I appreciate your research on the sources, and open mind as a current student. As a graduate, I appreciate that we have students like yourself. Peace
I would like to say first congragratulations to Jackson St. for providing such out standing service to not only jackson but to the state of Mississippi and beyond. The record attendence is not a fluke it’s because Jackson State has shown their leadership and commitment to this great nation. I am a junior transferring from Alcorn State and from the very first day I have been impressed. I must admit that I did not expect this type of love. Jackson State is not about who you know. Ok allow me to go a little deeper. We all know that as students we look for the most fruitful proffessor and in doing so we hear “No I wouldn’t take her/him because of” but what I have heard is ” He/she is ok but” and I take that to be an Instructor that is fair. It’s that simple. I am enjoying it here at Jstate and if I had not been here experiencing it myself I wouldnt believe it. If you want to be treated like a student and not an ID NUMBER I recommend Jackson State University.
tyronelgold