QUANTITY OF QUALITY: A PROPER EDUCATION STEP

At the secondary school level, emphasis has been placed in recent years on "at-risk" students, those in danger of dropping out before receiving diplomas. At the level of higher education, we expect students to weigh their own risks; they pay their money and take their chances. Still, it is instructional for taxpayers and out of institutional interest to track the numbers of those who complete college educations. Recent statistics on completion rates show Southeast Missouri State University as an institution on the right track but with some work yet to do.

Understand first that the completion-rate study of Missouri four-year state institutions, compiled by the Coordinating Board for Higher Education, includes campuses of varying sizes and missions. The regional nature of Missouri's public university system, with shifting populations and fluid economies, might also affect an analysis of students who begin their academic pursuits at one location but don't finish there.

The study, beginning with the fall semester of 1982 and ending in the spring of 1988, showed that 39 percent of full-time students entering Southeast Missouri State completed degrees in Cape Girardeau in six years. This number put the university in the middle range of state institutions, ranking behind campuses in Rolla, Columbia (both with 53 percent), Kirksville, Maryville and Warrensburg. The Cape Girardeau school ranked ahead of large University of Missouri campuses in St. Louis and Kansas and the rapidly growing Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield.

As a practical matter, the individual campuses may have reasons for their institutions' rankings. Schools that have no engineering programs, for example, may educate students for a couple of years before sending them off to Rolla for their special discipline; it would alter these statistics, but it can't be viewed as a mission unmet. Still, Charles McClain, Missouri higher education commissioner, is concerned by the numbers, feeling enrollment growth has for too long taken precedence over educational "outcomes."

We accept the reasoning at Southeast Missouri State that years shown in the study represent a problem that has since been recognized and addressed. Working with high schools in the service area, the university has raised its admission standards in recent times; where no students were denied admission to Southeast in 1982, 450 applications have been rejected for this fall's semester because of academic inadequacies.

The low number of those completing degrees once they've begun academic pursuits at Southeast Missouri State should get the attention of administrators on the hill. It bears assessment. Beyond that, we applaud the escalation of admission standards, believing that the university with a strong reputation for academics will ultimately draw students in sufficient numbers. The general trend to quality from quantity is heartening.