Mesa's Education Strategy Paying Off

It was a perfect fit. A sprawling Southwestern city that came of age too late to benefit from earlier generations of college-building in America was looking to fill the gap. A Midwestern college founded before the Civil War was looking for somewhere to grow. Mesa, meet Westminster College. The 1,100-student school from Fulton, Mo., has become the second to commit to a downtown Mesa campus as a result of what may at first have seemed a quixotic and perhaps unprecedented quest to retrofit itself with higher education. It wasn't until Arizona State University East, now known as ASU's Polytechnic campus, began operating in the mid-90s that Mesa had even one four-year, degree-granting institution.