State Matches Donors for $20 Million MU Business Facility

COLUMBIA, Mo. — A new $20 million facility for the University of Missouri’s College of Business is expected to “take education beyond the lecture hall,” according to an article by the Columbia Tribune. The new Applied Learning Center has received $10 million from donors, which was then matched by the state on May 18 during a news conference with Governor Jay Nixon.

The new center, which is attached to the Trulaske College of Business, will be financed with state general revenue and is one of several campus projects across the state in which private donors have provided half the total costs, according to the Columbia Tribune.

Lawmakers appropriated about $540 million for state facility repairs, maintenance and new construction projects over the next two years. The sum includes $56 million for the University of Missouri’s needs across the system and $35 million from bonds to build a new museum and research center in Columbia for the State Historical Society of Missouri.

During Nixon’s news conference he explained that the money was needed and said “a rebound in state receipts, up more than 7 percent when predictions put the increase at 4.6 percent, is making construction possible.”

While other projects are also on the table, the new Applied Learning Center has been approved and will be built at Rollins Street and Tiger Avenue and include four stories with a 250-seat auditorium, learning laboratories, classrooms and open spaces for studying. The center was pushed to the top of the university priority list, provided that 50 percent of the funding was matched, which is required under a state law approved three years ago. “It is an example of the kind of high-demand projects the law was designed to promote,” explained Nixon during the news conference.