Given his need to stay in Hattiesburg, Kennard sought to enroll at Mississippi Southern College, a state institution, in 1956, 1957 and 1959. It was still segregated despite the ruling by the US Supreme Court in "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954) that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Mississippi governor James P. Coleman offered to have the state pay Kennard's tuition elsewhere at a private college, but Kennard declined. He preferred that college as it was the closest to his home, a major factor given his family situation.