University of Mississippi Graduate School Sees Increase in Attendance

By Tucker Lewis

Journalism Student

The University of Mississippi’s Graduate School enrollment is up 18% since fall 2019, with the increase due to employment issues during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think it is more effects of work and opportunities that were available,” said Assistant Dean of the Graduate School Robert Doerksen.

Although Doerksen believes the rise in enrollment is due to the lack of job opportunities, some students believe they need more time in the classroom after losing a year due to COVID.

“I believe the COVID year kind of took away a lot of the learning experience that I should have had,” said senior JT Carney, who will be getting his masters of accountancy next year.

Carney also believes that going to graduate school will also help further his career in the future.

“This next year that I will have, I think it’s going to add a lot of value to my degree, and also to my knowledge just in general,” said Carney.

The University of Mississippi Graduate School has also added more programs and have invested more resources into making the degrees offered more diverse.

“We’ve had a lot of exciting new graduate programs being started, new degree programs, and so we currently have around 170 different degree programs available,” said Doerksen.