Every public school in Mississippi is raising tuition except one. See which school

On May 13 , Delta State University President Dan Ennis laid out a restructuring plan that he hopes paves the way for a more sustainable future for the school in Cleveland.

In it, Ennis is planning on cutting 21 degree programs, while adding just four as he hopes to get the school right side up in regard to revenue.

Delta State's enrollment has been in decline in recent years. It had a high-water mark of nearly 4,500 students in the mid 1980s. However, the Bolivar County school along U.S. 61 had an enrollment of just 2,700 for the 2023-24 school year.

On May 16, Delta State made another bold move. It became the only public university in Mississippi that did not raise its tuition going into the 2024-25 school year.

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"I think a lot of people think it is counterintuitive that one day I am announcing budget cuts because we don't have enough money, but by the end of the week we aren't raising tuition," Ennis told the Clarion Ledger. "However, it is all connected."

Ennis came to Delta State in March of 2023 after serving as Provost and Executive Vice President of Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C.

Ennis had served in several administrative roles at the university over the past 20 years, including Provost, Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts, Vice President for Academic Outreach, Chair of the Department of English, and Co-Director of the University Honors Program. A tenured professor of English, Ennis has been an assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor at Coastal Carolina, according to the IHL.

He said he knew when he took the job there was declining enrollment and tough decisions were going to have to be made, but he wanted to give himself and the university on full year to study all of the ins and outs of the school.

Ennis said that in year's past, leaders of the university tended to raise tuition on students during tough times instead of making the more difficult decision of cutting staff or programs, or both, as he did earlier this week.

In the long run, raising tuition, Ennis believes took away one of the main advantages Delta State historically had on larger institutions. Lower tuition on a smaller campus with smaller class size had been the calling card for the school through its golden years of the 1980s.

"Raising tuition is a good short-term response, but not a great long-term response," Ennis said. "For generations, we were positioned in the market as a more affordable choice for students in working families. That market advantage has eroded over the last decade or so."

Delta State's tuition of $8,435, while ranked sixth of eight public universities, is not that far off of the Big 3 schools of Mississippi State ($10,052), University of Mississippi ($9,612) and the University of Southern Mississippi ($9,888).here was a time DSU's tuition was less than 60% of the largest schools.

"There just isn't as much daylight between Delta State and the more expensive schools than there was 10-20 years ago," Ennis said. "So, making this decision helps us as we recruit to be able to talk about the financial advantages of Delta State. That combined with the tough choices we made earlier this week should help us get our footing once again."

Despite the fact that Ennis is cutting programs like English, History and more, he says that doesn't have to be a permanent change.

"If we can get back to sustainability, I certainly can see a path to adding programs back where it makes sense," Ennis said.

As the new tuitions were announced at the Institutions of Higher Learning meeting on Thursday, Mississippi University for Women hiked its prices the most by 5% to $8,392, followed by Mississippi State and Southern Miss at 4% each.

Ole Miss is raising its tuition by 3.9%, while Mississippi Valley State ($7,492) upped its price by 3% as did Alcorn State ($8,105). Jackson State added a modest 2% to up its tuition to $8,690.

"Our goal is to be able to give a good, quality education for, over the course of four years $10,000-$15,000 less than other places in Mississippi. So part of it is a market positioning thing," Ennis said. "The other part is that we are in a region in the Mississippi Delta where incomes are lower and we need to serve our region in the best way possible. I thought it best to hold the line at this time."

He said he know this will not always be the case.

"I know that inflation will eventually force my hand," Ennis said. "But we are going to slow our roll in jumping to a tuition increase as the first choice of budget issues. We would rather cut expenses than raise tuition."

He said that tuition is always going to go up at some point, but that for more than a decade, Delta State's percentage was always the highest or near the highest among Mississippi's public universities.

"That was just not sustainable for Delta State and put us at a disadvantage as time went on," he said. "Now, I will say our housing costs are much less than a lot of people and that helps, but we also haven't built new dorms in a long time. But we have to get to a point where we are competitive in bringing more students to Delta State and we hope holding the line on tuition is the first step in doing that."

Ross Reily can be reached by email at rreily@gannett.com or 601-573-2952. You can follow him on Twitter @GreenOkra1.