Why the Biden administration says Mississippi shortchanged Alcorn State by $250 million
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The Biden administration sent a letter to Gov. Tate Reeves last month saying Mississippi had underfunded Alcorn State University by more than $250 million over the last 30 years.
The Education Department looked at how much Mississippi had spent per student at both Mississippi State University and Alcorn State University from 1987 to 2020.
Mississippi State University was funded by the 1862 Morrill Act, which gave land to states they could sell to establish colleges that taught agriculture and the “mechanical arts.” These schools are called “land-grant universities.”
In 1890, a second Morrill Act gave states a choice: either allow Black students to attend their land-grant schools or accept federal money to start a separate Black land-grant school. Southern states chose to create separate schools. Alcorn State University was the result of the 1890 law.
More: What do states owe land-grant universities?
States that created separate schools for Black students were required to provide them with the same level of funding as the white schools. Almost no states met this requirement.
Land-grant universities also receive grants from the Agriculture Department for research and extension services. States are supposed to match those federal grants one-to-one. States regularly fail to provide Black land-grant schools with those matching funds.
The Education Department calculated the difference in funding using data the schools themselves submitted to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. Here is a table of how much money Mississippi provided to Mississippi State University and Alcorn State University annually between 1987 and 2020. (If the table does not load automatically below, it can be found at this link.)
Todd A. Price is a regional reporter for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at taprice@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why Biden says Mississippi shortchanged Alcorn State by $250 million
