Starting this fall, residents of the southwestern Twin Cities metropolitan area won’t have to go far to get a Minnesota State University education.

They won’t even have to come to MSU at all. MSU is coming to them.

When fall semester starts, MSU will have about 400 additional students to add to its total enrollment for the university’s newest off-site endeavor.

It’s called MSU at 7700 France, named appropriately for the office building’s Edina address (and because city codes won’t allow a big Kasota stone marker along the roadway).

For now, students can pursue undergraduate degrees in speech communication, creative writing, elementary education, special education and secondary education (mathematics), and graduate degrees in public administration, corrections, human services administration, special education and community health.

In future years an MBA program may be added, as well as adult degree-completion programs and other courses.

“One of the reasons we’re putting it up there,” said MSU’s Henry Morris, who will head up the new site, “is that it’s close to (the target market), so people don’t have to drive down here.”

Most of the classes take place in the afternoon and evenings, the university said, as the site is “intended to fit the busy schedules of working professionals ... Though the classes are for nontraditional students, full university support and services will be available.”

That means any service available to a student on the MSU campus will be available to students at the Edina site.

The opening of the France Avenue site also will mark the beginning of the formal relationship MSU has established with Normandale Community College.

MSU has made it so that students can take their first two years of college at Normandale, where they’d complete the general education requirements all students must take.

“The 7700 France site in Edina will enhance the Normandale degree by providing our graduates with upper-level courses that are only five minutes from our campus,” Normandale President Joe Opatz said in a college-issued statement. “Many of our students seek to convert their associate’s degrees into bachelor’s degrees, and our reciprocity agreement with Minnesota State Mankato lets them do that seamlessly.”

For the back end of the four-year degree, they’d attend classes at the new site.

People taking MSU classes in the southwest metro isn’t a new thing. It’s been happening for years. Classes have been held in Burnsville, Eden Prairie and other locations.

But this is the first time a four-year institution within the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system has launched a full-service site.

Pat Lipetzky, MSU’s dean of Extended Learning, said the new facility will have plenty of classroom and office space for several years of growth. MSU hopes, in fact, to double its student count by fall 2009. Eventually, they hope to serve up to 2,000 students at the new site.

They also hope to add new programs. Any program may one day find its way to the France Avenue site. Morris said the only exception would be programs requiring labs.

The new site is part of MSU’s enrollment management plan. MSU President Richard Davenport said a year ago that he wanted MSU to grow its enrollment. Today it’s a little over 14,000. Eventually he wants it to be between 18,000 and 20,000.

Lipetzky said the new site was a big part of that plan, but it also has other benefits.

“This will keep us fresh and vital,” Lipetzky said.

Morris said he’s looking forward to the change in scenery. Not that he didn’t like it here — he stayed for 18 years.

“I’m kind of excited about it,” he said. “It’s a new challenge and an important initiative for the university.”

Morris said he and Pam Baker spent months searching for a location for the site and getting the word out — by way of billboard and 54,000 direct mailings — to southwest metro residents about what MSU was planning.