UNIVERSITY PROVIDES ECONOMIC BENEFITS HERE

As an institution of higher learning, Southeast Missouri State University has excelled. Through the school's 118 years, its graduates have succeeded in most fields of endeavor. Seen another way, the university is an enterprise of considerable economic significance, with staying power and stability matched by few other fiscal entities. The university remains a remarkable asset for this community and region.

More evidence of this surfaced last week with the release of a study on Southeast Missouri State's influence on the region's economy. Though the study was conducted by the university's economics department and offices of economic development and institutional research, its findings can't be defined only as self-serving; the numbers reinforce the fact the institution is a vital part of this area's fiscal well-being.

According to the study made public Friday at a local business gathering, the university infuses $48.9 million annually into the regional economy. The total economic pull, however, amounts to $310 million, including direct and indirect expenditures, tax impact, deposits in local financial institutions and the added "human capital" of enriched graduates. Broken out, the annual impact on local taxes amounts to about $785,000. The monetary base of the region is fattened by almost $13 million. The favorable statistics mount.

While these economic calculations create an interesting and detailed trail of finance, the point can be made with a simpler set of numbers. The university draws about 8,800 undergraduate and graduate students to its classrooms. Those students must be sheltered, fed, entertained and generally tended to by local concerns. The students create a workplace for about 940 full-time employees, who must also be sheltered, fed, entertained and so on. The businesses that are supported by the university in turn support other people and gene~rate more economic growth; the benefits snowball.

If the numbers seem elusive in determining the "human capital" impact (the study claims $206 million), the point is still well taken. The university builds on its own success by turning out graduates who ultimately earn more money, are more productive and are capable of stimulating economic advancement. The ripple effect of a more highly educated populace is substantial.

There are many reasons Cape Girardeau should be proud of Southeast Missouri State. And the reasons seem to multiply.