By Jarrett Renshaw/Statehouse Bureau
TRENTON — The state’s 45 college presidents have compiled a bulging $5.9 billion wish list in the hope that lawmakers and taxpayers agree to invest in a long-sought expansion and upgrading of New Jersey’s public and private schools.
The list of 300 projects obtained by The Star-Ledger was provided to legislative leaders and Christie administration officials as they consider asking voters to approve the first bond issue for higher education in more than two decades.
Projects on the wish list range from the modest to the more grandiose, and include a $1.5 billion request from Rutgers, with $51 million intended for a new food and health institute in New Brunswick, and $1 billion in requests from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, with $263 million eyed for a health sciences center and upgrades to its power plant in Newark.
And there are requests bound to raise the eyebrows of lawmakers and taxpayers alike, like the $214 million sought by Princeton University, one of the nation’s elite institutions that has an endowment of more than $17 billion.
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