Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Based on the number of doctoral degrees awarded and various other factors, Mississippi State now is ranked Level 1 by the Southern Regional Education Board.
To be classified as a four-year Level 1 institution, a university must award at least 100 doctoral degrees distributed across a range of academic programs. SREB provides such data as a resource for statistical comparisons among institutions.
"Expanding our graduate programs is one of the university's priorities, and it is encouraging that Mississippi State meets the criteria in this category," said Vance H. Watson, interim MSU president.
For the just-ended academic year, MSU had a record graduate enrollment of 3,831, an increase of 255 students from the previous year.
"We want to continue to build top-flight post-baccalaureate programs in Mississippi," Watson said. For many years, the 130-year-old land-grant institution has had a number of nationally recognized academic programs and faculty members, he added.
The College of Education awarded the highest number of MSU doctoral degrees during the last academic year, followed by the Bagley College of Engineering and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.