Legislation that would allow schools like Missouri State University in Springfield and Southeast Missouri State in Cape Girardeau to offer degrees like engineering and pharmacy has been approved by a Missouri Senate committee.
Senate Bill 11 from State Sen. Lincoln Hough (R-Springfield) would repeal the law that says Mizzou is the exclusive grantor of professional degrees like dentistry, law, medicine, optometry, pharmacy and veterinary medicine. The bill is backed by Missourians for Improving Higher Education co-founder Tom Strong, who’s a Mizzou donor and a graduate of Mizzou’s school of law. He tells 939 the Eagle’s “Wake Up Missouri” that it’s not an anti-Mizzou bill:
“Missouri State (in Springfield) would love to have an engineering program, a stand-alone engineering program. It would love to have a vet school,” Strong says.
He says Senator Hough’s bill allows other universities to perform as they can perform. Mr. Strong also tells listeners that repeal would help students in rural southeast Missouri:
“I know that SEMO (Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau) would love to have an engineering school, because the students are just vacating that area … engineering students, to other states,” Strong says.
He tells listeners that high school students in Missouri’s Bootheel are closer to Ole Miss in Oxford than they are to Mizzou in Columbia. You can hear the full “Wake Up Missouri” interview with Missourians for Improving Higher Education co-founder Tom Strong here.
