In the early 1920s, Murray was a tobacco farming community of about 2,500 people. But the western Kentucky hamlet had big dreams, fueled in large part by Rainey T. Wells, a local educator, attorney, one-term state legislator, and a state tax commissioner.
When the General Assembly decided to create two new normal schools in rural areas to train teachers, Wells organized the people of Calloway County to ensure that Murray would be selected. He organized gifts of cash and land totaling more than $100,000, and secured promises from 350 local families to house students in their homes until dorms could be built. He also made the arduous, two-day trip to Frankfort to lobby lawmakers to pick his hometown.
In the end, Murray would beat eight other western Kentucky communities to win the new school, which was founded in 1922 and welcomed its first students the next year. A statue of Wells that now graces the campus is inscribed, “His dedicated service as its second President (1926-1932) endowed it with its fierce pride and undaunted spirit.”
The vision that Wells had for higher education lives on a century later in what became Murray State University, a four-year public institution that serves 9,400 students from every county in Kentucky as well as from 48 states and 50 countries.
“We have a great history and we’re very proud of it,” says current MSU President Bob Jackson. “We are blessed with wonderful faculty, wonderful staff, wonderful students that has made Murray State a special place for 100 years.”
The Value of Higher Education at Murray
The school has garnered national accolades for its 60 bachelor’s and 37 master’s degree programs. MSU is also frequently ranked among the top universities in the south by U.S. News & World Report. Jackson says Murray offers some of the lowest tuitions of all of the state’s public universities.
“Access and affordability is extremely important to Murray State. It always has been,” he says. “The last few years, we have established records in regard to financial aid and scholarships, and we continue on that trend.”
One of the challenges facing higher education, according to Jackson, is how to get more prospective college students to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid forms known as FAFSA. He says only 54 percent of Kentucky youth actually complete the application that can lead to loans, grants, and other types of financial assistance.
“All of us have to do a better job in regard to making sure we promote completing the FAFSA,” says Jackson. “We’re leaving too much money on the table.”
Among students who complete the forms, Jackson says at least 95 percent will go on to college. He says most high schools do a good job of having students complete the FAFSA process, but he says he wants the General Assembly to make that a requirement for graduation.
Jackson says he and his peers must also continue to promote the value of higher education. He says three-quarters of jobs open today require some level of college study, and most require a bachelor’s degree or higher.
But in the last decade, there have been 4 million fewer students going to college, according to Jackson. He argues that does not bode well for economic and workforce development efforts.
“It’s going to take all of us working together, singing from the same page of the hymn book,” says Jackson, “selling to families and students today the importance of a college/university education.”
State Funding for Higher Ed
State funding for Kentucky’s public universities continues to be an issue for the schools. Jackson says he is grateful to lawmakers in the 2022 General Assembly session for allocating much-needed dollars for maintenance and renovation of campus buildings. He says many structures at MSU are approaching 100 years old, and are in need of repairs like new roofs and windows, heat and air conditioning upgrades, or mold abatement.
New construction at Murray has also been difficult. Jackson says price increases due to inflation and availability of materials due to supply chain shortages is forcing the school to reevaluate construction of a residential housing project on campus.
MSU and the other public universities are also adjusting to the state’s new performance-based funding model that rewards schools for meeting certain metrics, including student success.
Jackson says the new model has been neither a blessing or a curse, but one that lawmakers and education officials must continue to tweak.
“One of the things we changed just a couple years ago was protecting a floor of our funding so we can’t go below that floor,” he says, “which gives us all great relief knowing that we can’t go below this level.”
‘The Finest Place We Know’
Jackson served as a state senator from 1997 to 2004, and worked in corporate finance in addition to being the president and CEO of the Murray State University Foundation. He says he doesn’t miss the long drive to Frankfort, although he still visits frequently in his work for MSU and with the Council and Postsecondary Education. He says he loved working with his colleagues at the capitol to craft policy.
“When we’re dealing with big issues in Kentucky,” says Jackson, “everyone does come together for the good of all, and that’s what makes it a special place.”
Jackson is also the co-author of a new book about his alma mater titled “The Finest Place We Know: A Centennial History of Murray State University, 1922 - 2022.” He says being the president of MSU is the best job he’s ever had, and it will be his last job, but he adds he has no intentions of retiring anytime soon.
As he looks to the future. Jackson says Murray State will continue to offer students the kinds of personal and academic experiences that many other institutions simply can’t provide.
“We’ll see the physical plant change but the things that matter and matter the most – the teaching and learning, the quality, the accolades that we receive – obviously we want them to stay or be enhanced even in the years to come,” he says.
