OTC receives $2M from MOHELA funding

The initiative is an agreement between the state and the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority that stipulates MOHELA will sell portions of its out-of-state student loans to provide $350 million to the Missouri Development Finance Board.

During the next five years, the board is distributing $335 million among Missouri colleges and universities for capital improvement projects and $15 million to the Department of Economic Development’s Missouri Technology Corp., which works to retain high-technology companies and commercialize research.

The first round of funding was distributed in October and included $22,000 for Missouri State University.

OTC will use its $2 million portion to make campus improvements, namely an addition on the west side of the Norman K. Myers Technical Education Center in Springfield.

About $430,000, which OTC must match, will go to repair and renovation projects, including the new on-campus Health and Wellness Clinic, the Center for Workforce Development and the third floor of the Gillioz Theatre complex, which houses OTC’s fine arts programs.

“The additions to our Technical Education Center will be crucial to providing a quality, technologically advanced education to our students,” OTC President Hal Higdon said in a news release. “Additional classroom and lab space will enable the college to serve more students per semester, thereby providing more trained employees for the area work force.”

A list of the schools receiving funding under the Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative and their planned projects is available at www.ded.mo.gov/lcdi.

This story originally appeared in SBJ’s Nov. 19 free e-news Daily Update. Click here to register.