Agenda Texas: Campus Construction in Spotlight

Everything was going so well for higher education during the 2013 legislative session. With less than a week left in the session, House Higher Education Committee Chairman Dan Branch, R-Dallas, was pleased.

“I would say that, take a look at this budget, and we haven’t completed it yet so I don’t want to be premature, but it looks like we’re going to have a pretty significant investment in higher education," Branch said during an interview last month.

That investment included authorization of several billion dollars in tuition revenue bonds, or TRBs, which are used by state colleges and universities to help finance construction projects.

“I’m very happy right now," Branch said. "Again, I don’t want to jinx it. I need to keep acting like I’m unhappy till the end."

So, two things: He did jinx it, and he’s still unhappy.

Just a couple of days after Branch announced his pleasure with the session, the TRB bill died, leaving schools across the state without that additional money. Reeve Hamilton, the Tribune's higher education reporter, said this is just the latest disappointing session for TRBs.

“It’s not official, but they’re sort of expected to pass a TRB package every other session, so that’s every four years," Hamilton said. "And we haven’t had one since 2006, so that’s about seven years. And if we don’t have one this session or in the special session, we won’t have one for nine years."

So what does it mean that schools won’t have this additional source of funds? It depends on the school. The University of Texas at Austin was going to use that money to build a new engineering education and research center for the Cockrell School of Engineering.

“The facility will be one of the most important student learning environments at UT," said Gregory Fenves, the engineering school's dean. "On the research side, it will provide very unique new types of laboratory facilities for faculty and students across engineering and across campus to come together to work on major interdisciplinary problems."

Luckily for UT-Austin, the new building wasn’t relying on TRBs exclusively to fund its construction. While there’s no specific plan to make up for the money, Fenves said there are options.

“We’ve got a variety of funding sources through UT System, our donors and the university," Fenves said. "The state component through TRB will be very important. We can figure out how to make it work."

But as TRBs continue to be delayed, the wish list of projects continue to pile up. But Hamilton said this isn’t just a wish list.

“For UT-Austin, they’re trying to build a $300 million engineering building, which would be great," Hamilton said. "But for a school like Prairie View A&M, for example, they just want about $6 million just so they can do some critical maintenance that they’ve been needing."

But it wasn’t all gloom and doom for higher education during the session. Texas colleges and universities secured an overall boost in funds, with the Valley getting the crown jewel of the session.

“They passed a bill that will eventually lead to the abolishment, technically, of UT-Brownsville and UT-Pan American, and a new university — sort of a super university — will be created out of those two institutions, and it will include a medical school," Hamilton said. "It’s a really, really big deal for the Valley."

The big deal for other schools, for now, will be watching and waiting to see if Gov. Rick Perry adds TRBs to the special session agenda.