Time to end the rift

Efforts to find an agreeable solution to the rift between Southeast Missouri State University and Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff have so far been unsuccessful. As a result, students interested in pursuing classes at convenient locations throughout Southeast Missouri are faced with some uncertainty. This is unfortunate.

For several years, the two schools -- one a state university offering bachelor's, master's and even doctorate degrees in conjunction with the University of Missouri, and the other a community college providing associate degrees -- have jointly offered classes at learning centers in Sikeston, Kennett and Malden as well as their respective main campuses in Cape Girardeau and Poplar Bluff.

Sharing the costs

While the centers have been a boon for students, certain economic considerations regarding the costs of operating those centers have been something of a bane for both sponsoring institutions. When efforts to work out those concerns broke down, Southeast announced it would take over the three centers that had been shared with Three Rivers, including all the financial responsibility.

That decision rankled administrators and board members at Three Rivers, which countered by filing a lawsuit and offering to provide classes at several high schools around Southeast Missouri.

Coordinating board's role

In one sense, this dispute is a major test of the powers of the Coordinating Board for Higher Education, which was created by the Missouri General Assembly in the 1970s to oversee the efficient operations of state-funded colleges and universities. But the coordinating board has never had much enforcement power other than setting priorities for capital projects at colleges and universities -- sometimes used as leverage to get institutions to go along with some of the board's other guidelines.

If this dispute is to be resolved by the coordinating board, there is no need for the lawsuit filed by Three Rivers in which the community college claims Southeast breached the contract governing joint operations of the higher education centers. And if the coordinating board's top official is going to invest his time and effort in working things out, both schools need to agree up front that they will abide by whatever common ground the commissioner is able to find as both schools deliberate.

In some regards, the dispute appears to be petty, but in other ways there are major issues that obviously need to be resolved. For the sake of current and future students who have benefited and will benefit from the easy and low-cost access to a college education offered by the learning-center model, this squabble needs to be laid to rest as quickly as possible.