MOHELA board wants profits to solely fund higher education

While state lawmakers debate how to spend an estimated $450 million from the anticipated sale of student loans, the authority holding those loans says it wants the money spent on higher education.

The chairman of the Missouri Senate appropriations committee introduced a bill Thursday that would spend some $300 million on campus construction projects but also include more than a hundred million dollars for health care.

The plan by state Sen. Chuck Gross, R-St. Charles, includes $65.9 million for health centers that serve Medicaid and Medicare patients, as well as $55 million for a health care trust fund to provide scholarships for medical, dental and nursing students as well as those studying to be dental hygienists.

An additional $2.4 million would be earmarked for medical and dental school scholarships this year. The bill also would provide $200,000 this year for dental hygienist scholarships.

The House, for its part, wants to spend $75 million from the sale of Missouri Education Loan Authority loans to help retire the state debt.

But the MOHELA board voted last month that the profits from the sale of student loans should be spent on higher education.

"There's no disagreement on the board about it," said MOHELA interim executive director Raymond Bayer Jr.

But he stopped short of directly criticizing the Senate plan. "We are kind of staying out of that," he said Monday.

But Bayer said the board has made it clear that it supports Gov. Matt Blunt's Lewis & Clark Discovery plan, which would spend the money on higher education. The governor's plan includes money for campus projects, scholarships and professorships.

Gross said the Senate plan would spend most of the MOHELA money on higher education. But he acknowledged that spending money on health care could seem a stretch to some Missourians.

"You could certainly make the argument that the connection is very nebulous," he said.

But the Republican senator said he hopes the board takes a good look at the legislation.

"This is a phenomenal opportunity," said Gross. Government, he said, could improve health care in Missouri.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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