This is the third and final story in a series examining proposed cuts to Mississippi community college workforce training programs and the subsequent impact on the state s economy. Mississippi lawmakers say they empathize with business and education leaders about the plight of workforce training funds and are searching for ways to minimize the impact of proposed community college cuts.
Community colleges are always the first to get hit because they can generate their own funds.
People are scrambling and digging as hard as they can, trying to shift money around, but we don t know where we ll take it from to give to the community colleges. According to studies featured in the trade journal The Chronicle of Higher Education, Mississippi has been pushed down from No. 8 in the nation for funding higher education in FY1999 to No. 47 in FY2000. But a change of direction has observers saying this latest round of proposed budget cuts will probably land the state at the bottom. In Mississippi, the recent economic boon and the good times for public colleges already seem to have come to a screeching halt, the publication said. Rep. Charlie Capps of Cleveland, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and member of the Legislative Budget Committee, said the situation might get worse.