Miss. colleges, universities adjust after Katrina

By Valerie Bauman
The Associated Press

Ashley Bactad and many of her Mississippi State University classmates could do little but fret as Hurricane Katrina smashed into their Gulf Coast homes and threatened family members.

Two weeks after the storm, Bactad was able to return to her family in Long Beach and survey the damage herself. She was more fortunate than many: Her parents had survived, and the family home, two blocks north of the railroad, was damaged but reparable. Not far away, Katrina's wind and storm surge had turned homes and businesses into scrap.

For hundreds of other two-year and four-year college students, the Aug. 29 hurricane has created major headaches. Many have had to move to other institutions, some are scrambling to pay their own tuition, while others have put their education on hold.

"People on campus have been really good about helping each other as much as they can," said Bactad, a 22-year-old senior at the university in Starkville. "But I know there are people here finding it really hard right now.

"On top of taking care of their families and making sure they get the grades, they have to think about finances," she said. "They didn't before."

At Pearl River Community College, Jessica Pierce had considered transferring when the school was forced to close temporarily because of Katrina's damage to the Poplarville campus.

She worried about the hassle of a delayed academic year, but decided to stick it out — even when school officials were forced to add a third roommate to her two-person dorm room.

"The hardest part to me is when one of the girls in my room wants to talk on the phone," Pierce said. "Another one wants to watch TV, and other one needs to study. It can be really hard ... but we're trying to work around each other."

Community and junior colleges have refocused their attention to getting students back into classes and cleaning up the damage and debris. Except for the wrecked Waveland campus of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, all 15 schools and the remaining 33 campuses are back in operation.

Some community colleges have plans to run a compressed schedule — similar to a summer semester — where the same amount of work is squeezed into less time. This alternative will help students like Pierce graduate on time, said Wayne Stonecypher, executive director for the State Board of Community and Junior Colleges.

Pierce said the accelerated course work at Pearl River Community College was obvious. After classes resumed Sept. 19, she found herself being tested on seven chapters of material rather than the usual three. And with space limited in her dorm room, preparation has been a challenge.

Katrina's impact on the state's community colleges and universities is not limited to the immediate coast.

Annie Mitchell, a spokeswoman for the state college board, said the hurricane left more than $266 million in damage to the eight public universities.

Stonecypher estimates damage at community and junior colleges at $68.5 million — excluding lost tuition, county support from taxes and the loss of books.

Enrollment at the universities changes daily. More than 13,000 students in the system are from the affected regions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Before Katrina, about 5,000 of the 15,000 students attending the University of Southern Mississippi campuses were from coastal areas. Some 1,000 students were forced to withdraw from classes after the storm, most from the heavily damaged Long Beach campus.

While there are about 12,000 students enrolled in the state's community college system, an estimated 30 percent have not returned, Stonecypher said.

Many students have either applied at other schools or have dropped out to help support their families, he said.

Besides the enrollment drop, other resources are also under stress. For example, the traffic at the counseling center at Southern Miss has increased about 400 percent this semester, said Joe Paul, vice president of student affairs.

On a positive note, out-of-state students who transferred into Mississippi because of Katrina are seeing an education price tag usually reserved for the locals. Gov. Haley Barbour signed a bill to waive out-of-state tuition at all of the community colleges and universities for evacuees of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Despite that, many students are still struggling financially and the universities are trying to do everything they can to keep them in school, Paul said.

"Many of these students are here now, and worry about having the revenue to stay here next semester," he said.

Southern Miss has already begun to raise private funds through alumni and other resources to arrange for student scholarships, he said. The school is also hoping for federal relief in emergency tuition grants.

In the meantime, new support groups have opened up on the campus to help bring a sense of unity as the educational community tries to bounce back financially and emotionally.