There is some good news about the effort to increase the percentage of Mississippi residents with a better education — a college degree, employment certification or on-the-job training experience.
The goal is to have 55% of working-age Mississippians (25 to 64) with one of those backgrounds by 2030, and the state appears to be making progress toward it.
The Magnolia Tribune website reported that the Mississippi Economic Council and AccelerateMS, a state agency that coordinates workforce training and other employment efforts, started Ascent to 55% in 2022. Before that, in 2019, only 44% of adults had some sort of advanced work credentials. That was the fourth-lowest rate in the nation.
The executive director of Ascent to 55% said recently that the state, five-plus years later, has increased that figure to 48.7%. It’s less than halfway toward the 2030 goal, but it’s progress.
One obvious benefit is that a higher educational or training “attainment rate,” as it is called, means the state’s workforce participation rate also is likely to increase. Mississippi’s workforce participation rate has been in the 54% to 55% range, the lowest in the country. Workers with more school or training are more likely to get a job and keep it.
But the main thing, according to Ascent executive director Jean Massey, is the estimate that by 2030 — in five years — 63% of the jobs in Mississippi will require some form of higher education or training. That’s certainly a higher percentage of jobs than the state has today.
The Tribune also reported that bills in the 2025 Legislature may help nudge the state toward that 55% attainment goal.
Massey said lawmakers are considering reworking a tuition assistance grant program to make higher education or job training available to more people. She said there are 300,000 adults in the state with some college but no degree or certification. Improving the skills of just a percentage of those people would make a difference.
All this points to the big issue: Getting more people into college or training programs is going to cost money, whether for tuition, childcare or both. There’s no word on what these expenses might be, but if the state is serious about a better-trained workforce, it almost certainly will require a substantial taxpayer investment.
