The Excel Center, through MERS-Goodwill, is a high school for adults that opened in Indiana in 2010. Eight years later, Missouri opened their own Excel Centers in St. Louis, Springfield, and Poplar Bluff. A year after that, Missouri opened a new center in Columbia. These centers were opened to help students 21 and older earn a certified high school diploma. The model these schools follow takes into consideration the barriers related to poverty that often keep adults from acquiring a high school education. Goodwill’s mission is “Changing lives through the power of work.” From the beginning, these centers were designed to help students become employable.
