FEW COLLEGE GRADUATES IN SERVICE REGION

Southeast Missouri State University officials hope night and weekend classes will make a difference in a region where few attend college.

The university serves a 24-county area of Southeast Missouri and is the only four-year school in the region.

On average, about 62 percent of the region's adults 25 years of age and older have high-school degrees. Eighteen percent have taken some college courses and just over 9 percent have college degrees.

The figures are highest in Cape Girardeau County, where 74 percent of the adults are high-school graduates.

Even in the university's home county, however, only 22 percent of adults have attended college and just over 19 percent have college degrees.

School officials said most adults in the region simply aren't attending college; they don't see college as relevant to their lives.

Southeast hopes to change such thinking. The school wants to focus on training people for jobs and tie the liberal-arts education to practical experience in the business world.

Dr. Bill Atchley, Southeast's president, said the university must tie education to jobs.

The university, for example, plans to offer more degree programs in the fast-growing health fields where there is a demand for jobs such as physical therapy assistants.

The curriculum changes will make education more meaningful to students and aid in economic development in the region, Atchley said.

In addition to night and weekend classes, Southeast plans to offer more classes at off-campus sites for the convenience of students.

The university already offers some classes at the Bootheel Education Center at Malden, and at sites in Perryville and Sikeston, through partnerships with other schools.