The importance of early care and education (ECE) to children's lifelong learning and to our nation's economic well-being is recognized up to the highest levels of government and in businesses, schools, and living rooms across the country. Like many states in recent years, Mississippi has committed public and private resources toward multiple efforts to improve ECE services, including early education degree and certification programs, in order to improve the preparation of their graduates to meet the complex needs of young children. Critical to these efforts is the establishment of a well-coordinated, comprehensive professional preparation and development system that can prepare and support an incoming generation of educators, while also strengthening the skills of the existing early education workforce. Institutions of higher education are crucial to meeting the evolving and increasing demands identified as improving developmental and learning outcomes for the state's young child population. The following pages highlight findings from the "Mississippi Early Childhood Higher Education Inventory" and the extent to which early childhood degree programs offer course content and learning experiences that are associated with effective teacher preparation. The full narrative report, "Teaching the Teachers of Our Youngest Children: The State of Early Childhood Higher Education in Mississippi," presents the full findings. [For the full report, see ED614353.]