Healey proposes $2.5B higher education infrastructure plan

Photo | Courtesy Framingham State University Framingham State University campus

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By Colin A. Young | State House News Service

Forecasting "a transformative impact on the economic landscape of our state," Gov. Maura Healey detailed plans Tuesday to pump at least $2.5 billion into campus facilities at the University of Massachusetts, state universities and community colleges by the middle of the 2030s.

The governor outlined her new proposal after touring the Cyber Range at Bridgewater State University, a hands-on lab where she lamented that too many public higher education campuses don't have the proper facilities to train students for cutting-edge jobs that can keep the state economically competitive.

Healey's office is calling the planned outlay "the largest proposed infrastructure investments in Massachusetts' public higher education system in decades." She said her so-called BRIGHT Act ("An Act to Build Resilient Infrastructure to Generate Higher Education Transformation") will modernize campuses to include labs, classrooms and training facilities that support ifields like web development, robotics and automation, advanced manufacturing, and more. It will also focus on student health and wellness facilities, and will include an emphasis on decarbonizing campuses.

The governor called it a "jobs bill" and her office said construction activity spurred by the spending contemplated under the bill would create approximately 15,000 associated jobs. The public higher education universe in Massachusetts includes 29 campuses: 15 community colleges, nine state universities and five UMass campuses, according to the Department of Higher Education.

"Our public university and college campuses have suffered from historic underinvestment since they were built in the 1970s. We refuse to kick the can down the road any longer when it comes to educating our kids and training our workers of tomorrow," the governor said, using the same idiom she has taken to using when talking about transportation financing. "With these transformative infrastructure investments, we will give students a cutting-edge education in our affordable public universities and colleges, create thousands of good-paying jobs for our workers and keep our state economically competitive for years to come."

The fiscal 2026 budget that Healey will file Wednesday will propose to annually use $125 million of income surtax revenue to leverage $2.5 billion in new borrowing capacity for higher education infrastructure needs over the next 10 years. The administration said the BRIGHT Act "works in tandem with this proposal" by authorizing up to $3 billion in investments for campuses, leaving the administration with plenty of options when it comes time to borrow and spend for public higher education capital needs in the coming years.

"Our proposed strategy to borrow against Fair Share revenues is modeled on an approach we have successfully deployed in the transportation sector through the Commonwealth Transportation Fund," Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz said, highlighting a budgeting strategy that the Healey administration has come to rely on recently. "The bill we are filing today puts these new resources to work to ensure our campuses can address their significant deferred maintenance backlogs and decarbonize their infrastructure while also modernizing to meet the needs of today’s students and workforce."

Under a constitutional amendment adopted in 2022, surtax revenues are supposed to be used only for education or transportation purposes. The governor has said her budget filing Wednesday will call for at least $765 million in surplus surtax revenues to be put into the Commonwealth Transportation Fund with an annual commitment to maintain inflows. The state can then borrow against that funding, estimating that it will unlock about $5 billion in bonding capacity for transportation projects over the next decade.

Healey introduced Gorzkowicz on Tuesday as "the person who helps make it all work by making the math work, and he was also responsible for figuring out how we could, as a state, for the first time, leverage our excellent bond rating and secure greater access to capital, to the tune of $8 billion for transportation."

The secretary said the financing structure, while new for higher education, is modeled on "a proven and successful credit which has been used to fund important transportation investments over a decade now, through our Commonwealth Transportation Fund."

"State capital investments for higher education have historically relied on general obligation bonds funded through our annual capital plan. However, given the constraints of our capital plan, major capital projects for higher ed have not kept pace with the growing deferred maintenance needs and the goals of campus decarbonization plans," the secretary said. "We have been losing ground on both fronts, so it's not an exaggeration to say that our proposal will mark a turning point for higher education in Massachusetts, ensuring we finally have dedicated resources at a scale large enough to tackle the growing challenges we're facing."

Though Tuesday's announcement was more about state financing than about the education being delivered on campuses, Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler said it will "go a long way toward transforming our higher ed campuses and facilities to ensure that Massachusetts remains the best place to pursue a two or four year degree."

"All of this drives innovation and strengthens our economy. If anyone -- there's a lot of cameras up there, zoom in on this face -- if anyone out there is interested in pursuing higher education, come to Massachusetts. We are investing in your future," Tutwiler said, addressing the bank of TV cameras recording the press conference.

The higher education announcement included statements of support from the presidents of Bridgewater and Salem state universities, as well as from the head of the Massachusetts Association of Community Colleges. Representatives from UMass campuses, other state universities and community colleges, as well as a host of state government officials, attended the press conference. A handful of BSU students, who do not resume classes until Wednesday, also attended.

"Although we work hard to address the need as best we can by utilizing student fees and modest state funds, BSU alone still has more than $200 million in deferred maintenance. State support to modernize campus facilities is absolutely critical to enhance affordability, accessibility, and academic excellence for the students we are privileged to serve," Bridgewater State President Frederick Clark said.

Clark said that "the importance of deferred maintenance funding is all about keeping these campuses affordable for the students that we're privileged to serve" for himself and the 28 other public higher education campus leaders.

"This campus and our buildings are owned by the state, after all, and the state must rise up to take care of what it owns. Frankly, I think it's wrong to expect students to pay for the upkeep of state buildings on our campuses. But for many, many years, our students have increasingly done exactly that," he said.

Healey's office said her bill is informed by a report from the Higher Education Capital Working Group, a group created in the fiscal 2025 budget. The group's report summarizing the capital needs of public higher education campuses "confirms the viability of leveraging Fair Share revenue to unlock new capital dollars," the administration said. The report was to be released alongside the governor's Tuesday morning announcement.

The governor's office also said the higher education bond bill will support housing development by "providing for higher education institutions’ costs associated with the disposition of land and buildings."