Healey Proposes $2.5 Billion to Improve Public College Campuses, Cites Buildings Built in 70s

Gov. Maura Healey, center, got a rundown on the classes and trainings that take place at Bridgewater State University’s Cyber Range on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and BSU President Frederick Clark joined her. (SHNS/Colin A. Young.)

To submit school announcements, click on image.

By Colin A. Young

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.

“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.”

Northern Essex Community College’s Haverhill campus, built in 1971, is one such property. The college has cited $9 million in deferred maintenance as the reason it seeks to partner with the private sector to redevelop and modernize its Haverhill health and wellness building. The college is also looking at a possible “shared campus” with Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School.

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, short for “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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Comments are closed.