A day after Governor Jay Nixon (D-MO) delivered his State of the State address, the word went out to five universities that funding from the sale of assets of MOHELA – the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority – would be not be forthcoming.
The University of Missouri, Missouri State University, University of Central Missouri, Truman State University, and Southeast Missouri State University will lose out on promised funding. The University of Missouri is hardest hit, losing more than $30-million. And that angers Senator Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia), who found out about it during a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
"We’re just a week down the road," says Schaefer, "From when the Governor stood at … the University of Missouri and made a promise to a room full of students and university employees that he was not going to make cuts to higher education. And now … we see a $31-million cut to the Universityh of Missouri."
Asked whether he feels the Governor misled him, Schaefer responds, "I think we were all misled."
Nixon Administration officials say the planned funding is not going to the schools because there is no MOHELA money to give to the schools. The MOHELA sale was a major initiative of former Governor Matt Blunt – an initiative then-Attorney General Jay Nixon strongly opposed.