"Once we have made sure that any lazy, ignorant person can make it out of high school, let's rubber-stamp his or her admission into a public university to ensure that he or she continue to be ignorant and/or lazy and are not required to put any real effort into learning anything taught or expected in rural, complacent, poor, obese, destined-for-failure Mississippi!"
Although this letter is sarcastic and over the top, it does raise a serious issue. Because of the Ayers case, the admission requirements for the state system are the same at all of the universities, and they are quite low. Most states have at least one school with high admission requirements to allow superior students to benefit from high level instruction at reasonable tuition levels. Some of these schools are referred to as the public Ivies. Mississippi residents are denied this opportunity under the current admission requirements.