Most Affordable Colleges in Mississippi 2025

Badge for MOST AFFORDABLE COLLEGES IN MISSISSIPPI

By Dr. James Barham
Reviewed By Jenn Finley

Published: Apr 13, 2021
Updated: Nov 4, 2024

Key Takeaways

Public colleges and universities are among the most affordable schools in Mississippi.
Mississippi has a diverse group of colleges including technology and career preparation universities, small colleges, religious schools, and research universities.
Mississippi has several schools with a tuition rate below $10K.

Table of Contents

10 Most Affordable Colleges in Mississippi 2025

University of Mississippi
Mississippi State University
Jackson State University
+1
University of Southern Mississippi
–1
Tougaloo College
+2
Alcorn State University
+2
Mississippi University for Women
–1
Delta State University
–3
William Carey University
Rust College

2025 Ranking Update

Our Influence Ranking Engine™ leverages machine learning to track the real-world influence of colleges and universities over time. Below you’ll see which schools gained or lost ground for the 2025 school year.

The top 2 positions in our 2025 ranking of the most affordable colleges in Mississippi remain unchanged, while Jackson State University moves up 1 spot to number 3.

The University of Mississippi has introduced new scholarships and financial aid programs tailored to assist both in-state and out-of-state students, aiming to reduce the overall cost of attendance. Additionally, efforts have been made to keep tuition increases minimal, ensuring that the university remains one of the most cost-effective higher education options in Mississippi.

Mississippi State University (MSU) has expanded its scholarship offerings, including the Presidential Scholarships, which provide substantial financial support to high-achieving students. Additionally, MSU has streamlined the General Scholarship Application process, opening it on October 1, 2024, for students entering in summer or fall 2025, thereby simplifying access to various departmental and private scholarships.

Jackson State University has also expanded its scholarship offerings, including the Presidential Academic Scholarship, which covers full tuition, room and board, fees, and books for eligible incoming freshmen. Additionally, JSU has maintained competitive tuition rates.

How do we determine Mississippi's best affordable colleges and universities?

Methodology

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 12 colleges and universities in Mississippi with stated tuitions and fees under $20,000/year. The following list of the most affordable colleges and universities in Mississippi is composed entirely of schools offering bachelor’s degree programs, have stated tuition and fees near or under the national average of $16,000/year, and are fully accredited colleges.