Hundreds rally to protest college merger proposal - Elizabeth Crisp, clarion-ledger

The Senate Universities and Colleges Committee and Appropriations Subcommittee on higher ed funding held a joint hearing this morning to discuss the future of the state’s eight public universities during the budget crisis. University budgets have been cut 8.2 percent for the fiscal year that began July 1 because of declining state revenues. On Tuesday The Clarion-Ledger obtained a 34-page presentation that had been made by Jackson State University President Ronald Mason in favor of a merger of the three historically black universities. The new university would be named “Jacobs State University” after H.P. Jacobs, who was a former slave and one of the founding fathers of Jackson State.