The Mississippi Higher Education Initiative (MSHEI) is a proven educational program with the mission of increasing the educational attainment levels and post-secondary/college-going rates in Mississippi’s Appalachian counties. The MSHEI vision is that every child in the Appalachian region will complete high school and a post-secondary certificate or degree and become productive workers in occupations requiring high levels of knowledge and skills.

The MSHEI program administers low-cost, high-impact competitive grants and other professional services to community-based teams for activities (campus visits, college/career fairs, etc.) that encourage students to graduate from high school and prepare for post-secondary education. MSHEI focuses on access to a variety of post-secondary educational opportunities, including community college certificate and associate degree programs, four-year college degree programs, and university degree programs.

Modeled after successful Appalachian Higher Education Network programs in Ohio and West Virginia, MSHEI focuses on community-based partnerships among high schools, community and junior colleges, higher education institutions, business, industry, local government, and community organizations to stimulate and sustain economic development in the region by raising high school graduation rates and increasing student, parent, and teacher knowledge about post-secondary educational attainment.

The goal of MSHEI is to increase high school graduation rates, college-going rates, and establish infrastructures of community-wide school support providing all students with information about and access to college. MSHEI invests in Appalachian students so that they can expect, pursue, and succeed in higher education, the workforce, and life.

In 2008, MSHEI began focusing efforts in the Appalachian counties deemed “Distressed” by the Appalachian Regional Commission: Benton, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Clay, Kemper, Marshall, Montgomery, Noxubee, Panola, Webster, Winston, and Yalobusha. Supplemental funding from ARC in 2009 also allows MSHEI to provide these same services in eight counties designated by ARC as “At-Risk”: Alcorn, Calhoun, Lowndes, Monroe, Oktibbeha, Prentiss, Tippah, and Tishomingo. MSHEI is also engaged in seeking additional sponsors to continue to scale up these projects to meet the needs of schools and students throughout Appalachian Mississippi and beyond.

MSHEI is an affiliate of the Appalachian Higher Education Network. Since 1998, the Appalachian Regional Commission has helped establish centers in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Consortia of two- and four-year institutions of higher education and community-based nonprofit organizations run each center. In 2003, the original center in Ohio won the “Innovations in American Government Award” from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.