Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State University is collaborating with 130 public universities and systems to increase college access, close the achievement gap, and award hundreds of thousands more degrees by 2025.

As part of a “Powered by Publics: Scaling Student Success” effort organized by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), the Magnolia State’s leading university and other participating institutions will work within “clusters” of four to 12 each. Their goal is to concurrently implement innovative and effective practices to advance student success on their respective campuses. Collectively, the institutions enroll 3 million students, including 1 million who receive Pell Grants.

“Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed a real and growing enthusiasm among public university leaders to advance college completion nationally,” said APLU President Peter McPherson. “We have to seize the moment and mobilize institutions to improve not just college access, but also equity in student outcomes and the number of students who earn degrees. That’s what Powered by Publics is all about and why we’re thrilled to work with our member institutions toward such an important national goal.”

The initiative represents the largest-ever collaborative effort to improve college access, advance equity, and increase college degrees awarded. In addition to committing to these goals, participating institutions have pledged to share aggregate data demonstrating their progress to help spur lasting change across the higher education sector.

“There’s definitely something to be said for strength in numbers,” said MSU Provost and Executive Vice President Judy Bonner. “I’m confident that working collectively we can help improve students’ academic growth and success, leading them to graduation. Being able to share pertinent data from our respective institutions is a very important component of Powered by Publics, which will help us realize opportunities for students to not only have access to college but realize their dreams of obtaining a college degree.”

MSU Vice President for Student Affairs Regina Hyatt said MSU is “very excited to be included in this innovative process facilitated by APLU.”

“Our goal is to ensure that we reduce barriers to student success and that all students who enroll at MSU can successfully complete their degrees,” Hyatt said. “We look forward to our partnership with other outstanding universities across the country as we learn from one another’s successes and challenges.”

By design, the participating institutions reflect a wide array of institutional characteristics, such as enrollment, student demographics, regional workforce needs and selectivity. The broad diversity of the institutions is intended to help create a playbook of adaptable student success reforms that can be adopted and scaled up across a variety of institution types, including those with limited resources.

The clusters have identified anticipated focus areas for their work. MSU and nine other institutions are part of the Southern Central Cluster, which is focusing on financial solutions for students.

The Powered by Publics effort is being overseen by APLU’s Center for Public University Transformation, created this year to help drive transformational change across the public higher education sector. A core value of the center and its participating institutions will be rooted in a commitment to sharing data and innovative, successful practices to help drive progress across the entire sector of public higher education. The center will regularly disseminate lessons learned from the participating institutions to the broader public higher education community.

A national advisory council of respected higher education thought leaders will provide a strategic vision and guidance for the center, which will work to build upon and complement existing initiatives around institutional change and student success.

APLU is a research, policy and advocacy organization dedicated to strengthening and advancing the work of public universities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. With a membership of 238 public research universities, land-grant institutions, state university systems, and affiliated organizations, APLU’s agenda is built on the three pillars of increasing degree completion and academic success, advancing scientific research, and expanding engagement. Annually, member campuses enroll 4.8 million undergraduates and 1.3 million graduate students, award 1.2 million degrees, employ 1.3 million faculty and staff, and conduct $44.9 billion in university-based research. For more, visit http://aplu.org.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.