Letter to the Editor

The results of a study from California were recently released. The subject of this study: NCAA graduation rates over 6 years, meaning how many freshmen in 2004 completed a BA/BS by 2010 graduation. This study was brought to light in response to the conference shift currently taking place in which some schools claimed to want to be in a more academically respected conference. In the SEC, Ole Miss came in second, topped only by Vanderbilt. This sounds good right? Well, no, because while Ole Miss was second in the SEC with a 64% graduation rate, Vanderbilt has one of the highest rates in the nation with 91%. The first question on your mind should be “why does Vanderbilt graduate nearly 30% more students?”

Vanderbilt is not much smaller than Ole Miss, their website says 12,514 total enrollment while all Ole Miss campuses (Oxford, Tupelo, UMMC, etc) is 18,344. Maybe it is because Ole Miss allows nearly everyone in. The Ole Miss website lists the entrance requirements of “2.5 high school GPA and 16 on the ACT” while Vanderbilt’s middle 50% are 28-32. Am I saying that Ole Miss is too easy to get into? Well, yes.

As far as quality of teaching goes, I am sure teacher dedication is the same at both institutions. It was reported in the DM that Ole Miss Athletics has a $43.7 million budget for 2010-2011 where $15.8 million is going to salaries and wages. Our head football coach alone makes more than $2 million, where many professors here make less than $60,000 according to the DM last year. So I ask again, why does Ole Miss have only a 64% graduation rate, nearly the same as Florida and LSU, while tuition has increased to, including the mandatory flex dollar purchase starting in 2010, nearly $3000 a semester? I understand that Ole Miss is “committed to becoming one of America’s great public universities”, but what if after 6 years all you had to show for it was a $50,000 student loan bill? In this student’s

opinion, Ole Miss needs to look at why 36% of students fail to graduate and the countless others who graduate with a C average. Yes it is great that Ole Miss graduates students close to the national average, but how do you think it makes those 36% feel?

There is absolutely no reason Ole Miss could not attain at least a 90% graduation rate by increasing the entrance requirements even slightly to, say, a 25 ACT score or 20 and 3.0 high school GPA and hiring more professors to reduce class sizes to increase the quality of education. Yes I like sports, but college for the 99% of students not in athletics is about academics, and a little piece of paper that says you have passed Go, collect a Job.

Matthew Maples

Senior - Biology/Psychology Major