Best campus, Ole Miss or Miss St

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by Back In Orange

I have always heard Ole Miss was better and Miss St is a dump but I think that I prefer Miss St based on Google street view.

Better in what way?

Depends on what you want to study there. For the liberal arts, pre-law, and pre-med, definitely Ole Miss. For agricultural sciences and engineering, I'd go to State.

It also depends on your personality. Ole Miss (fair or not) tends to be VERY Greek-oriented, to the point where it is a major part of campus life. It's also very devoted to tradition. State still has an active Greek system and devotion to tradition, but neither aggressively impact the campus culture there as much as at Ole Miss.

Amenities: about what you'd expect for college towns with less than 15,000 permanent residents in counties with populations under 50,000 (at most). More amenities than the average small town, but nothing to write home about. In this case, Ole Miss has the advantage: only 70 miles from Memphis vs State being a little over 100 from Birmingham. In short, both are in the middle of nowhere, but State is even more so.

Each has pluses and minuses. One has to make their own choice in this regard.

[EarlVanDorn]

Originally Posted by jwkilgore

I may agree with or disagree with this statement depending on what you mean.

If you're complaining that the Universities/State is spending too much money on football, then you are wrong. The stadiums are more than paid for in income from the athletic programs. Just this morning, after a debate where I work, I checked resale ticket prices on StubHub. If you want to get into the EggBowl this year it will cost you somewhere between $350 and $11,800 per seat. Parking is extra. I realize those are "scalper" prices and the money isn't going to the Universities, but the fact is that the University was paid in full for all 60,000++ sold-out seats. This applies to every home game for both schools this football season. Plus licensing fees for symbols and wording on cowbells, shirts, stadium seats, and caps. My trip with my son to see MSState whup on Texas A&M cost me about $200. (2x$45 for seats [direct-buy, not from a scalper], 2 shirts, 1 cowbell, 1 cap, 2 padded stadium seats, parking, snacks and drinks at the game, etc.).

And thanks to their unprecedented double-run at top-ranked football, the free advertising both universities are receiving is incalculable. Every televised game is filled with ads (paid for by the academic side) discussing the benefits of studying there, plus all the talking-head discussions throughout the week. Ole Miss will be on Game Day for the second time this season on Saturday.

If you are complaining that people at large are placing too much priority on a game instead of an education, then I agree with you. The fanaticism some people put into such games is beyond ridiculous. But I do not agree that the universities have caused this. It goes way beyond universities into everything from pee-wee to high school to professional sports. I do NOT blame the University system for tapping into that income stream by constructing an expensive stadium and building an expensive athletic program.

The SEC now has a revenue sharing program of almost a third of a billion dollars a year. Each school's athletic program is paid more than $20 million each year just for suiting up. This is the TV revenue.

I wouldn't want to even guess at the other revenue and donations that would not be made save for the athletic program. At any rate, the athletic program is not draining money away from academics.

[ClemVegas]

I think Mississipi State has a better campus, better landscaping, it is like a country estate with huge greenspaces seen in front of the football stadium, and the archicture of the buildings is more appealing to me. Ole Miss has all those Greek looking buildings wth white columns, and the buildings have red roofs which look weird to me.

I would say Miss State is in the top 5 of campuses that I've seen. Granted, I have only Google map street viewed and looked at pictures for many of them includng MSU. Ole Miss is above average though.

I also like Starkville better than Oxford, the restaurants are a lot closer to campus.

[viverlibre]

Mississippi State better campus, Oxford better town. Starkville has come a long way in the past 5-10 years, but will never be as good as Oxford due the public schools. In Oxford the city and county public schools are both good, in Starkville, you will likely go private.

Had Starkville Academy never been established, the city of Starkville would be much better off.

[ClemVegas]

Columbus looks like a more developed city so I assume it has some decent publics, that is all the same area.

[viverlibre]

Originally Posted by Simpsonvilllian

Columbus looks like a more developed city so I assume it has some decent publics, that is all the same area.

Columbus Public Schools are actually worse (this from a teacher who has taught high school in both), academies ruined it also. Starkville City Schools aren't bad, but many middle class families send their kids to Starkville Academy, espically when the child gets into middle school age.

[brickpatio]

Neighboring Ackerman and East Webster schools (15 minutes west of Starkville in Choctaw and Webster Counties) both have schools that rank in the top 20 in the state based on test scores. These are rural areas but an easy drive to Starkville - and to achieve these scores they must be attracting a slice of middle class families working in the Starkville area. Similarly, 15 minutes outside Columbus are Caledonia schools, some of which also rank in the top 10 or top 20 in the state based on test scores.

[jrecufan]

I'm a big State fan but agree it's a matter of taste. Ole Miss is all about the old Southern period architecture which is beautiful. State's campus has been dramatically upgraded and has a more open, yet still historic feel. Oxford gets the edge as a town, but we're not talking towns. My heart will always lie with State despite the fact I live in NC now.

Speaking of NC - the poster who said the UNC Campus was one of the most beautiful needs to seriously spend a little more time at Duke. They top all campuses in NC in beauty and architecture hands down......and....they currently rule the tobacco road rivalry in Basketball.

[brickpatio]

I'll speak up for Mississippi State.

Mississippi State is quite nice and quickly becoming more and more beautiful. There have been many changes in the past ten years or so. As colleges go, this is a campus now where I instantly feel a sense that most parents would feel comfortable sending their child. Lots of green lawns, shiny-new brick dorms built around grassyquads, set apart from the city and thus incredibly safe and ideal for biking through campus and walking.

The students are quite diverse and at the same time evoke a wholesomeness a la Wally and Beaver Clever. You sense that the young people are at once progressive, kind, and open-minded and clearly living in 2016, while also coming across as genuine and caring in a way that you see more often from people from small towns and rural areas. There is a genuine feeling of racial harmony, of small-town, southern kindness and politeness and family.

Currently Mississippi State is steadily implementing its campus master plan, including a brand new road along the southern border of Starkville, which leads up to a new formal southern entrance for the campus. The new south campus entrance will be along a huge green space that us currently used for student intramural sports. It will be landscaped and turned into an elegant campus quad that (it appears) will be at least as large as the Grove at Ole Miss, and possibly quite a bit larger. Looking north, the football stadium is up the hill, rising up into the sky.

The city of Starkville also is growing and improving in unexpected ways. People who are familiar with Starkville know that it's actually quite affluent with expansive new residential areas running along the southern side of town. That particular zip code in median household income is in the same ball park with Madison and Ridgeland and definitely looks the part.

Downtown Starkville is full with shops and restaurants and especially during football season buzzes with festivals, concerts, farmers markets and the like. Down the street, the Cotton District is another charming hub for restaurants and student oriented bars.

To me the downer and what really separates it from Oxford is the architecture. Main Street downtown and University Avenue towards the Cotton District does have some cute and charming buildings. However, there are also many buildings that don't really fit in.

For example, there are two large banks downtown that sit on possibly the best property in all of downtown Starkville. One of the buildings looks like something from a provincial market town in the Soviet Union, circa 1975. That particular architectural style is known as, I believe, brutalism. That's just one example.

I have been wishing and dreaming that some wealthy people in Mississippi, foundations, and the university would join with the city to purchase those two bank properties which are on Main Street and directly across the street from each other ... and build a picturesque historic square like Oxford, but perhaps with architecture even more beautiful. Across Europe and in closer locations such as New Orleans and Charleston there are countless examples of classical architecture that could give Starkville a signature historic center.

The final point that comes to mind is Starkville's Highway 12, the main commercial strip through town with grocery stores, gas stations etc. From what I read in the newspaper, the mayor recently attempted to create a special district along Highway 12 with the goal of providing it with an extreme makeover. The idea was to add bike lanes, historic street lamps, landscaping, sidewalks, etc. In other words, make it look like it belongs in a classically beautiful college town. Sadly, exactly half the property owners along the street voted against the project. However, I doubt that the mayor will give up so easily. Now that Madison has provided the blueprint, any town in Mississippi can simply copy Madison's first-rate standards for signage, landscaping, building styles, and zoning. Let's hope the Starkville mayor gives Mayor Mary Hawkins a phone call...

Another project already in the works is the redevelopment of a major street that runs between campus and downtown Starkville starting with a new conference center and hotel. On my last visit, I was taken aback by the amount of construction of new apartment buildings going up along this artery and in particular the urbane look and feel to the buildings now being added to this area. Suddenly it's starting to feel like a city, rather a town, in this part of town and in a good way. They seem to be adding urban infill similar to what is happening in Fondren.

Lastly, the legislature has already allocated funds for a brand-new street going adjacent to the Mississippi State campus, which will be designed to provide a walkable area for cafes, restaurants, bars, shops and apartments right next to campus, similar to UNC Chapel Hill. It seems to me that over the next several decades, we're all going to watch Starkville evolve into a fascinating and vibrant community - with a personality all its own.