Graduate school may be a critical step in your higher education, whether you are interested in expanding your knowledge, learning a specialization, or earning advanced credentials required by your profession. The best graduate schools in Mississippi offer advanced degrees, such as master’s and doctoral degrees, as well as opportunities for independent research, mentorships, and professional networking.
The majority of the learning institutes in Mississippi are public schools, with the University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, being the largest. This university, located in Oxford, boasts alumni like William Faulkner, John Grisham, and James Meredith. Tuition at Ole Miss runs about $9,000, just below the national average. The eight private colleges, all of which have religious affiliations, range in tuition costs from $10,000 at Rust College to $40,000 at Millsaps College.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
Students who attend these schools have the option to pursue degrees in fields like nursing, business, dentistry, Christian ministry, education, and literature. Additionally, all of these private schools are considered small schools, serving under 5,000 students. Mississippi also offers up to $12,000 of undergraduate loan forgiveness, over the course of four years, for teachers who work in designated shortage areas or who teach in critical shortage subjects, like special education or mathematics.
From Mississippi mud pie to fried chicken, Mississippi brings a whole new meaning to the term comfort food.
The Magnolia State is easy on the eyes too. With nearly endless forests spilling over with hickory, pine, and oak trees, the intricate river system, and the Gulf Island National Seashore, Mississippi is a true destination for lovers of outdoor adventure. And students who plan on earning their associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree in Mississippi have 31 colleges and universities to choose from.
Explore some of the top schools and career paths Mississippi has to offer.
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great! If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities for a bachelor’s degree, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching and whether their graduates are themselves advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence in their fields of study.
Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Concentrated Influence provides a ranking that is freer from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
To rank the influence of schools, we first determine the influence of scholars and professionals based on the number of citations and publications they have had over the past 10 years. In addition to publications and citations, we consider the web links to and from these sources, and the page views of those sources. We then match the influential people to their alma maters and institutions of employment, so that their influence is attributed to those schools. Our machine-learning Influence Ranking algorithm produces a numerical score of academic achievements, merits, and citations across Wikipedia, wikidata, Crossref, Semantic Scholar and an ever-growing body of data. If you are interested in exploring how and why we rank by influence, explore our methodology in more depth.
There are 9 doctorate-granting graduate schools in Mississippi. Our ranking of the best graduate schools in the Mississippi is composed of both private and public schools. To be included, schools must be fully accredited non-profit institutions, and must offer doctoral degrees and a broad array of graduate degrees.
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
88%
Graduation
67%
Student body
20K
Median SAT/ACT
1135/25
University of Mississippi’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
64%
Student body
20K
Median SAT/ACT
1175/26
Mississippi State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
96%
Graduation
50%
Student body
13K
University of Southern Mississippi’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
90%
Graduation
44%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
981/19
Jackson State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$20K
Acceptance
29%
Graduation
65%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1145/25
Mississippi College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
100%
Graduation
39%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1115/21
Delta State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
55%
Graduation
53%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1065/24
William Carey University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$28K
Acceptance
50%
Graduation
47%
Student body
4K
Belhaven University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Many of our 2022 undergraduate focused rankings look considerably different than 2021. That’s because we took a fundamentally different apporach. For 2021 we utiulized our Concentrated Influence algorithm, designed to take away the size advantage larger schools have when we rank their faculty and alumni’s academic influence. Concentrated influence highlights smaller schools that are proportionally as successful as larger universities at cultivating influential alumni and faculty.
Get the latest Academic Influence news, information, and rankings with our upcoming newsletter.
Stay informed!