If you're dealing with a dismissal or a suspension from a college or university in Mississippi, it's understandable that you're probably freaking out. You may be wondering if your entire academic career has come to an end. You're in college because you intend to use your degree to live out your dreams. A suspension or dismissal can ruin those dreams, but that doesn't have to be the case.
There may be options and alternative solutions to your dismissal or suspension that you may not be aware of. Retain national academic attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento and the team at the Lento Law Firm. Call 888-535-3686 to find out how they can help.
Challenging Academic Progress Dismissal
Students who attend one of the 41 colleges or universities in Mississippi often receive federal loans to help pay for their tuition. Students at both private and public universities are eligible for these loans. In order to continue to receive this money, students must maintain “satisfactory academic progress” (SAP). In most cases, “SAP” means students must maintain a grade point average of 2.0 or higher. Four-year colleges like Mississippi State University and The University of Mississippi, as well as two-year schools like Blue Cliff College, lay out their SAP policies clearly so that students are fully aware of the implications of not maintaining satisfactory grades. If they fail to meet SAP standards, they will lose their loans because schools are not allowed to extend federal loans to students who don't meet the minimum requirements for the loan.
In cases where students fail to make SAP, the school can take several routes, including placing the student on academic probation or dismissing them from the program.
The problem with this is that schools don't always apply penalties fairly. They may recommend dismissal for one student and have a completely different set of options available to another student.
In many cases, students are dealing with issues that could make it difficult for them to maintain good grades. Some students are dealing with serious mental, physical, or emotional health issues. Some are struggling financially, working extra jobs to finance their education. There are many, many reasons that a student may struggle during their school career, and dismissing them or putting their entire academic career at risk isn't fair.
If you're in danger of being dismissed from your Mississippi college or university, or it's already happened, don't give up. Retain the services of academic attorney advisor Joseph D . Lento and the team at the Lento Law Firm so they can use their years of experience dealing with this very issue to help you.
Challenging Misconduct Dismissal or Discipline
Poor academic progression is not the only reason you could be dismissed from your college or university in Mississippi. You could also be dismissed for academic misconduct or other types of misconduct.
Title IX is a federal law that was developed in the early 1970s by the federal government in order to help protect students from sexual discrimination on US campuses. The law works in tandem with schools' own policies regarding misconduct in order to help create a safe environment for all students to learn.
If someone brings allegations of misconduct against a student and the school doesn't respond in a timely and definitive manner, that lack of action could put the school at risk legally. For this reason, schools tend to react swiftly and strongly when it comes to punishing alleged offenders.
In their rush to respond to allegations, schools don't always hand out sanctions fairly. They may end up giving extremely strong punishments to students who don't have the opportunity to properly defend themselves, denying those students of their due process.
There are many things outside of actual misconduct that could cause misconduct allegations to be brought against a student. Someone may have been mistaken about what they saw or believed they saw, someone may have ulterior motives in accusing that student of misconduct, or there may have been a genuine mistake regarding what someone thinks a student did. Accused students often don't know how to defend themselves, so they go into University misconduct hearings fully unable to protect themselves properly.
Don't put yourself in that position. Joseph Lento and the experts at the Lento Law Firm have years of experience defending students from these very types of allegations. None of this is new to them, so they know exactly which questions to ask, what evidence to demand, and which solutions to seek out.
They will do everything in their power to provide you with a defense that will help you stay in school or reverse a dismissal.
The Consequences of Discipline or Dismissal
Don't underestimate the devastation that a dismissal or severe discipline from your school could unleash on your life. Some people may think that they'll simply have to find another school to attend, but students who have been dismissed from a college quickly learn that that's extremely hard, if not impossible, to do. Some of the consequences of severe discipline or being dismissed from a college or university in Mississippi include the following:
- You lose all progress that you've made up to this point. This means that if you do end up going to another school, you will have to start from zero. This takes years off of your academic career, especially if you're further along in your process.
- If you've taken out student loans, those loans will become due as soon as you leave the school. It doesn't matter that you left the school because you were asked to leave. Once you are no longer taking classes, your loans will become due a few months afterward. This can put you in a very serious financial bind, especially if you were planning on using your degree to secure a well-paying job.
- Getting accepted at another school is not as simple as you think if you have a dismissal or other types of academic discipline on your record. Disciplinary actions on your permanent record will make it less likely for a new school to accept you. This is true whether your dismissal came from misconduct or unsatisfactory academic progress. Both situations put your integrity at risk, whether your personal integrity or your academic integrity.
- If you've already received your degree and you've already been working when a ruling of academic misconduct has been made against you, your degree could actually be revoked.
These are just a few of the reasons that you need to take the threat of academic dismissal or discipline from your school or university as seriously as possible. The effects in your life could be devastating and long-lasting.
Appealing School Discipline or SAP Dismissal
If you've already been dismissed by your Mississippi school University, you may have already given up hope, thinking that there are no other options for you. That's not necessarily true at all.
One of the most important lessons that you learn in life is that you have to fight for everything that you truly believe in, and this is the time for you to fight for your right to go to school and finish. You absolutely have the right to challenge decisions that are made about you that could negatively affect the rest of your life.
In order to make this happen and to have the best chance of success, you need to work with an academic attorney advisor who knows exactly what they're doing. Joseph D. Lento and the team at the Lento Law Firm are the advisors that you need on your side. They help students across the country with the very issues you're facing, they've worked with people whose cases seem hopeless, and they've been able to turn things around for them. Give yourself that chance.
Alternative Options for Relief
There are actually alternative options for your situation apart from dismissal. Joseph Lento and his firm know all of these alternative options, thanks to working with students on these issues for years. They have strong relationships with school attorneys in the offices of General Counsel of many universities, and they also have relationships with scores of attorneys who have been hired by outside firms. These relationships have allowed them to develop a range of different options for students who have been dismissed or who are facing dismissal.
No one likes to do it but threatening to take the school to court is always an option, even though it should be the last option. The Lento Law Firm will not give up until you get the resolution that you need to help you get back on your feet, finish your academic career, and go on to live your best life.
Retain a National Academic Attorney-Advisor
Don't give up, even if you've already been dismissed. By retaining the services of academic attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento and the attorneys at the Lento Law Firm, you're giving yourself a fighting chance and saving your degree and your future.
Reach out to attorney advisor Joseph Lento and his team at the Lento Law Firm at 888-535-3686 for help. Your future is at stake.
