WKRN, Nashville, Tennessee News, Weather and Sports |Gov. Haslam to announce building program for higher ed

Gov. Haslam to announce building program for higher ed

The governor's State of the State speech Monday is expected to include a new building program for higher education.

It comes after years of budget decreases for Tennessee's quarter of a million state college students.

While state money for K-through-12 education has slightly increased or remained constant the last few years, higher education's portion of the state budget has often been cut by tens of millions of dollars.

The yearly cuts have lead to double-digit tuition increases, but this year's spending plan is likely to be different.

"I do think we will be funding more higher [education] projects than in the past," said Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey at his weekly press briefing on Thursday.

Governor Bill Haslam made similar remarks Monday during a stop at Tennessee Tech when asked what he would say about higher education in Monday's upcoming State of the State address.

At Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, the new money from Tennessee's Capitol Hill will help pay for a proposed science building.

MTSU biology students like Ravelle Walker told Nashville's News 2 what the new facility would mean to her.

"I think new technology for research… that might be the best thing," she said on the campus Friday.

The proposed science building at MTSU is at the top of a list from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) which oversees state schools.

Two buildings on the UT Knoxville campus are also at the top of the THEC list.

Paying for them will be a new bond program of hundreds of millions of dollars that takes advantage of historically low interest rates.

THEC has proposed a nearly $2 billion bond program over five years to new college facilities, but Lt. Governor Ramsey Thursday said it won't be anywhere near that figure.

The governor's State of the State speech is 6 p.m. Monday at the Capitol.