‘System of privilege’: How well-connected students get Mississippi State’s best dorms

Mississippi State University’s housing department has a confidential practice of helping certain well-connected students secure spots in its newest and most expensive dorms, while the premium price tag pushes many less privileged students into the campus’s older, cheaper halls.

It starts when donors, public officials, legacy alumni or other friends of the institution make a request for what the university calls “housing assignment assistance.”

Then, the Department of Housing and Residence Life works to place these students in the dorms they desire.

The practice is not an official university policy, and it’s not advertised on Mississippi State’s website. But inside the housing department, it is institutionalized. Many full-time staff refer to the process by the phrase “five star,” a reference to the euphemistic code — 5(asterisk) — the department used to assign well-connected students in its housing database, documents show.

In recent years, the department changed the process to make it more internal. 5(asterisk) has remained a virtual secret on campus — until now.

That’s partly because the department’s leadership has worked to keep the process under wraps, even going so far as to explicitly tell staff not to share information about 5(asterisk) outside of the department, according to emails Mississippi Today obtained through a public records request.

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