Volunteering with the Argenta Fire Protection District rekindled Doug Kirk Jr.'s appetite for education.

So even though he'd just earned an associate degree in general studies from Richland Community College the month before, he enrolled in fire science classes in January 2005 and earned an associate's in applied science in that subject in December 2006.

He enjoys his job as a facilities engineer for Caterpillar Inc. but hopes to eventually get certified as a paramedic or emergency medical technician and make his living fighting fires.

"I have a strong passion for fire service," said Kirk, who serves as the training officer for the all-volunteer district. "It feels nice to have the skill and knowledge to help people out in their time of need."

Kirk, 25, of Argenta is among a growing percentage of Macon County residents earning associate degrees, according to results of the 2007 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The survey of cities, counties and other places with 65,000 people or more also shows 7.2 percent of citizens age 25 and older had associate degrees only, compared to 5.3 percent in 2006.

It also showed a less significant increase in the percentage of local people in that age group with a bachelor's degree only.

Lucy Murphy, executive director of the Community Foundation of Decatur/ Macon County, said these results show the community's focus was on education long before the Decatur Area Education Coalition was launched officially in October 2007.

"This reflects a higher percentage of people prepared to do college-level work and succeed," Murphy said. "The credit goes to the high schools and also to Richland."

Lisa Gregory, executive assistant to the Richland president, said the college's enrollment tends to go up when employment in the community goes down, but that hasn't been the case in recent years.

Statistics from the Illinois Community College Board show Richland awarded 304 associate's degrees in 2007 compared to 246 in 2006, and fully half of them were in applied science. "It really is the fastest way to employment," Gregory said.

In addition to fire science, the 27 applied science degrees available at Richland include automotive technology, business, criminal justice, early childhood education, electronics, graphic arts, horticulture, hospitality management, network administration, nursing and surgical technology.

High school graduation rates no doubt contributed to the increases seen in the American Community Survey because people must have a diploma or a General Educational Development certificate to enroll in college. But because many college degrees are earned before age 25, it's hard to show a direct relationship between graduation/GED rates and the survey data.

The Macon-Piatt Regional Office of Education awarded 1,505 GEDs from Jan. 1, 2002, through Dec. 31, 2007, with yearly totals ranging from 172 in 2002 to 289 in 2005. The graduation rate for the Decatur School District, the county's largest, has jumped around as well - dipping below 72 percent in 2000 and 2004 but rising above 80 percent in 2002 and 2008.

Lisa Mann, the district's director of research and information, said the graduation rate ended on a high note of 87.7 percent in 2008 because the new Office of Student Services opened last school year is focusing on keeping individual students in school.

"It's amazing what you can do when you focus on something specific like this," Mann said.

Ross Hodel, co-director of Illinois State University's Center for the Study of Education Policy, said there's been a significant emphasis in Illinois the past several years on a more rigorous high school curriculum to better prepare students for college.

Nationally, he said, higher-education policymakers are studying how to then get more college students to earn degrees.

"We need to keep up internationally," Hodel said. "Five or six countries have moved ahead of the United States educationally in the past decade."

In the area of graduate or professional degrees, the Decatur area has a way to go before the education coalition meets its goal of making the community the most educated in Illinois. The American Community Survey shows a decline of more than 2 points in the percentage of Macon County residents with a graduate or professional degree - to 5.4 percent.

Finally, the percentages of people with a high school equivalency or higher or a bachelor's degree or higher changed less than 1 percentage point, with the high school category rising to 86.8 percent and the bachelor's category falling to 19.7 percent.

But Julie Pangrac, literacy program coordinator for Project READ, said she's glad Macon County has gotten started.

Her program is teaching nearly twice as many people to read and is conducting more than three times the tutoring sessions it used to conduct, thanks to a $100,000 federal Community Block Grant awarded a year ago by the Decatur City Council.

"What the Decatur Area Education Coalition is doing and what we're doing is going to take time to produce results because all we can do is take one day at a time, one student at a time and one problem at a time," Pangrac said. "You have to start somewhere."

tchurchill@herald-review.com|421-7978