Governor signs loan bill at River Campus

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt drew praise and loud applause Thursday during a visit to Southeast Missouri State University's new River Campus, where he signed legislation that provides more than $300 million for the new Cape Girardeau arts school and other college construction projects around the state.

Southeast president Dr. Ken Dobbins called the law a "historic measure" for higher education and the first significant construction funding for college campuses in Missouri in a decade.

Dobbins and Lucas Presson, president of the College Republicans at Southeast, also praised the governor for his successful efforts to include added funding for need-based college scholarships in the bill. The measure also will place limits on tuition increases at state-funded colleges and universities.

"Thank you for putting higher education on the map," Presson told the governor as he sat at a table and signed Senate Bill 389 into law.

Presson said the state funding for the River Campus means Southeast students won't be saddled with higher student fees to pay for it.

The legislation will take $350 million over six years from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority to fund dozens of college building projects and a college scholarship program.

Blunt spoke to nearly 100 university, city and civic leaders, key state lawmakers and Southeast students at the bill signing ceremony in the stain-glassed Shuck Recital Hall. The governor said the new law "strengthens our campuses." He said it opens the door to higher education for thousands of students and families in Missouri.

Blunt's late-afternoon visit to the River Campus was part of a three-day tour of communities that will benefit from the higher education spending bill. The tour began Wednesday and ends today.

Critics have claimed the bill sets a bad precedent, encouraging politicians to raid student loan agency funds for favored projects at the potential expense of low-cost student loans in the future. But state Sen. Gary Nodler, the bill's sponsor, said the criticisms aren't justified. "First of all, no Missouri student loans are being sold," the Joplin, Mo., Republican said.

The student loan authority has sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of loans made to non-Missourians to begin stockpiling money needed to make the state payments. Loan authority officials believe the payments can be made without affecting the lower interest rates and loan forgiveness programs it now offers to Missouri students.

In exchange for the money, MOHELA will get a 15-year pledge of tax-exempt bonding authority it could use to finance the acquisition of new student loans.

Nodler praised Blunt for coming up with the idea to use MOHELA money to fund higher education projects and scholarships. "It is a brilliant concept," he said, adding that other states are copying the plan.

"It just suggests to me that the critics don't get it," he said.

The new law includes millions of construction dollars for Southeast Missouri State University, including $17.2 million in state funding remaining for the nearly completed River Campus. The measure also allocates $4.5 million for a business incubator facility, $2.6 million for an autism center and $173,000 for a dental hygiene clinic at the university's Sikeston campus.

SB 389 also will increase the number of need-based, state-funded scholarships for Southeast students from 300 to about 1,900, Blunt said.

State Rep. Gayle Kingery, R-Poplar Bluff, used the ceremonial occasion to joke about the fact that state funding for the River Campus lagged behind the actual construction.

"It is now signed, sealed and delivered, so I guess you can start building it now," he quipped as the audience laughed.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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