Valley's economic success requires a four-year college

Frontiersman editorial board

Discussion among Mat-Su Borough Assembly members at their January retreat on how the borough can help grow Mat-Su College from a two-year community college to a four-year institution has a lot of merit.

Attendees at a planning retreat hosted by Mat-Su College a few years ago mostly agreed that MSC needed to plan for expanding to a four-year program in order to curb the exodus of our brightest students from the community.

The opinions those attendees voiced of what the college would look like in the future were varied, but everyone said they wanted to keep students here and provide a way for them to further their education in the Valley.

Converting the college to a four-year institution will be an expensive proposition, as Mat-Su College Director Paul Dauphinais points out, but the cost of not moving forward with this expansion goes well beyond the financial expense.

Losing our future community leaders to outside institutions reduces the number of talented people we have to guide Mat-Su in the future, as statistics show that fewer than half of outside-bound college students return home.

This newspaper has been an advocate for education for a long time. We strongly believe that educating our children, at all levels, is crucial for intelligent and sustainable development in our community.

Business and industry place a great deal of emphasis on the availability of qualified employees when considering new or expanding sites, and having a quality four-year college in one's community would certainly make a sound talking point for economic development.

Mat-Su College has also recently announced the addition to its curriculum of upper-level courses for the University of Alaska's nursing program, beginning next January. There is a growing demand for nurses across the state and nation, and with the new Mat-Su Regional Medical Center slated to open early next year, this, too, is an intelligent path for Mat-Su College.

We encourage the Mat-Su Borough and Mat-Su College representatives to continue moving forward with their discussions of bringing a four-year educational institution to the Mat-Su Valley.

We think the benefits and rewards will greatly exceed the financial investment.