Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, October 2, 1994                   TAG: 9410030013
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: G8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JEFF DEBELL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MINNESOTA CITY COMBINES RESOURCES

Not bad for a city where, until just a few years ago, it was impossible to get a four-year college degree.

There's still no four-year residential college in the home of the famed Mayo Clinic. But the degree is at last obtainable, thanks to business and civic leaders who decided in the mid-1980s to fill in that blank space in the area's higher education picture.

The result is the Greater Rochester Area University Center, which combines the resources of four private and four public schools, the latter including Minnesota Riverland Technical College and Rochester Community College, both two-year institutions.

"Basically, the community has driven higher education here," said Penny Reynen, executive director of GRAUC.

Students with degrees from either of the two-year schools can go to Winona State University-Rochester Center for their four-year degree. If they wish, they can pursue graduate study at Minnesota Bible College, the Mayo Foundation, St. Mary's College of Minnesota-Rochester Center, University of Minnesota Rochester Center, or Concordia of St. Paul.

Winona, Rochester Community College and the University of Minnesota Rochester Center are in the new $17-million University Center Rochester. The technical college will move to the site in accordance with plans to merge Minnesota's state universities, community colleges and technical colleges into a single system next year.

The remaining schools in GRAUC carry on their programs at other sites within the 110,000-person metropolitan area. There is no plan to change that, Reynen said, though the organization will draft a master plan to guide growth and eliminate unnecessary academic and administrative duplication.

The nonprofit organization is presided over by a board with an administrative budget of $156,000. Financial supporters include the city and county governments, the school district and private business.

At present, GRAUC has a collective enrollment of 8,500.

One of the objectives of GRAUC was to foster economic development in the area, Reynen said. As evidence of its success, she cites 4,000 higher-education jobs in the community and an estimated annual economic impact of $141 million.

Although GRAUC "enhances the attraction" to industry, Reynen said, industrial recruitment was not its objective and no large employers have moved to the area since the educational partnership went into business around 1990.

Institutions in GRAUC have provided educational opportunities for workers and their spouses. And when IBM and Mayo, two of the area's largest employers, recently carried out extensive layoffs, GRAUC schools retrained many of the workers for new careers.

As a result, Reynen said, the workers were re-absorbed into the regional work force.

"I doubt if we will ever get a four-year university," Reynen said. "What GRAUC has shown us is that we don't have to have one. There are other options."