Missouri Halts College Construction as a Loan Fund Falters

Not that you need more depressing news, but Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has halted college construction projects that were drawing from the state’s student-loan authority. According to the Associated Press, the loan authority has had financial troubles. As a candidate, the governor said that paying for building through the loan authority was “horrifically wrong public policy.”

“Nixon’s administration commissioner sent letters dated Tuesday to five universities notifying them that payments were being halted for about $150-million worth of construction projects,” said the AP story. “Many of those projects were either still in the planning stages or in the early stages of construction.”

The largest of the suspended projects is a $32-million cancer center at the University of Missouri at Columbia. A state senator from Columbia said the cut was “a huge blow” to the university and to the community the center would serve.