News - Local

Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Coast residents have fewer college degrees

Pascagoula, Gulfport near bottom of Mississippi cities

Roughly one in five adult residents of South Mississippi’s largest cities has a bachelor’s or advanced college degree.

This is among new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, which ranks Pascagoula and Gulfport near the bottom of Mississippi’s most educated cities. Ridgeland and Starkville have the state’s highest percentage of college-educated residents.

The data shows that about 16 percent of Pascagoula residents and about 19 percent of Gulfport residents have a bachelor’s or advanced college degree. Those numbers are the second and third lowest, respectively, among Mississippi’s 18 largest cities. The data covers residents age 25 and older in Mississippi cities that have a population of 20,000 or greater.

About 22 percent of Biloxi residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Ridgeland, near Jackson, is tops in the state in terms of percentage of residents with bachelor’s or advanced degrees. Starkville, home of Mississippi State University, is second, followed by Clinton in third.

The latest data is three-year estimates, covering 2006-2008, from the American Community Survey. The education numbers for Gulfport and Pascagoula are virtually unchanged from the 2000 census. Biloxi saw a 2.6 percent increase in that time frame in residents with bachelor’s or advanced degrees.

Hank Bounds, state commissioner of higher education, said the lower rates of advanced degrees on the Coast likely can be attributed to the job market. Casinos and other industries here often don’t require college degrees.

“On the Gulf Coast, you have lots of jobs that are service-oriented and skills-oriented,” he said. “You have a larger number of people who have received skills training.

“Most jobs require training past high school, so the workforce may be driving it.”

Bounds said one of his top priorities is to increase the number of people throughout the state who attend and graduate from college.

“One of Mississippi’s main problems is that we don’t have enough people with bachelor’s degrees,” he said. “One of the things we can do for our state is educate our citizenry. The more educated our citizens are, the more of those types of jobs you attract. I think we will need many more people with baccalaureate degrees because of the jobs that will be created on the Coast.”

Tom Lansford, academic dean at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast, agreed. He added that manufacturing jobs, which normally don’t require a degree, are on the decline. Technology and finance jobs, which usually require college degrees, are increasing.

He used states such as Virginia and North Carolina as good examples for Mississippi.

“States similar to Mississippi have put their focus on education and have attracted lots of jobs,” he said. “For Mississippi to really take advantage, we have to get more people into college.”

USM students have academic advisers who talk to them about their major and the job opportunities it can provide. The university also has an early alert system, in which students who seem to be struggling are identified and offered help before they consider dropping out.