Mississippi State University has continued to offer aid to the emergency transfer students who arrived in Starkville after Hurricane Katrina hit their universities. MSU will allow those students who wish to remain at the university to fully transfer and become a permanent student at State.
Earlier this week, The Associated Press reported that some schools will not allow Katrina transfers to remain at their establishments after closed Louisiana universities are being re-opened this January.
Bill Kibler, vice president for student affairs, said MSU’s official position is to neither encourage nor discourage those students in their decisions to remain here.
“We are only encouraging the students to stay in school,” Kibler said. “Whatever the students think is in their best interests, we’ll help them.”
Kibler added that those wishing to return to their respective universities in the spring would be helped in every way possible with the transferring of their credits earned at MSU.
Additionally, Kibler said the university would help any of the students who are planning on staying at MSU this upcoming semester.
The AP article highlighted a particular case of transfer student Julie Hall, one of the seven transfers who were allowed to attend Harvard this term.
Hall said she was distressed at the condition of New Orleans and wanted to remain at Harvard.
Kibler said he believed most schools that accepted Katrina transfers were allowing the students to remain, while a few of the more selective schools were taking the approach of telling the students to leave at the end of the term.
“In those schools’ defense, they probably don’t have any room to keep the transfer students,” Kibler said. He added that these were the schools that typically turn down thousands of applicants each year due to their strict requirements.
Of the approximately 68 students to come to MSU after their Louisiana schools closed, the office of the registrar reported there were about 61 left.
Maggie Hunter, a sophomore transfer from the University of New Orleans, said she is returning to New Orleans in the spring.
Hunter said the main reason she is returning is because she has a full scholarship there.
Also, she added that she preferred an urban collegiate atmosphere, as opposed to the more rural surroundings found at MSU.
The AP article cited some freshman transfers students who said they wanted to stay at their new colleges because they has not developed an attachment to their old universities before being forced to leave.