SOUTHEAST'S MBA A DRAW FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS

Southeast Missouri State University's business education program is bringing an increasing number of foreign students to Cape Girardeau to the benefit of the foreign students, local students and the community.

The draw for the international students is the university's master of business administration degree program, which offers an MBA at an exceptionally good price. Foreign students say an MBA from an American college is a passport to business throughout the world.

The degree can be obtained in two years, and most foreign students, who tend to take courses year-round, graduate in a year and a half. At $14,500, the degree is about a third of the cost of an MBA from Harvard, and that low cost for high value attracts students to Southeast, which has seen growth in enrollment of foreign students in the program every year.

Begun in 1996, the program was accredited in December by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Students can obtain an MBA with a focus in general management or accounting. Over the past five years, students from 21 foreign countries have made up 30 percent of the 178 students enrolled in the program. Last year alone, 39 of the 96 students taking courses toward an MBA were from 19 foreign countries.

Aware of the foreign market, Southeast has promoted the program worldwide over the Internet and through faculty and student exchanges with other countries. Foreign students who have completed the program also have helped bring students here through word of mouth.

The program could become even more global in the future, said Dr. Kenneth Heischmidt, director of the university's MBA program. Southeast's business college is studying the possibility of developing an online program that would allow students to obtain an MBA degree by taking courses entirely on the Internet from anywhere in the world. He says that could become a reality within two years.

Although the foreign students know English before they arrive, many say being in the United States improves their conversational English. That is an added benefit to the foreign students, who themselves bring international diversity to campus and expose U.S. students to their ways. The same can be said about the diversity they bring to Cape Girardeau through their everyday dealings with people in the community.

As attractive as the program has become in just five years, the university can expect to continue to see foreign students come to the university to pursue MBA degrees.