You're planning to get $29.5 million from where?

Northern State University has received the signature of the Governor on a bill that would provide $29.5 million to tear down two buildings on campus and replace them with a new one for its business department's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center,  the SDSU-based nursing program, and the admissions office.  The buildings to be torn down are Lincoln Hall, an old building with a formidable stair case at its entrance and a funky atmosphere because it was once a dormitory; and Briscoe Hall, which was a dormitory, but I have never been in it, so I can't attest to its degree of funk.  Lincoln Hall is more than a century old.  Briscoe opened in 1958, so it has been around long enough to acquire a respectable degree of funk.  

Funk can be a problem on campus.  Eight a.m. classes are the test.  Some students come to early morning classes with damp hair radiating the aroma of lilacs and roses shampoo.  Many throw on some sweat clothes from a pile on the floor and radiate the odor of festering pits.  An eight a.m. class does offer some olfactory challenges, particularly if the dorm food is heavy on the beans.

Anyway, the University has announced that it plans to defunk a corner of the campus with a pristine new building.  However, it is still searching for some funk-free architects, who will have a difficult task because the financing for the building is to come from the American Rescue Plan Act.  Northern State does not appear to be needing rescue from anything, except a couple of administrators who seem to be getting high from sniffing funk.  The American Rescue Plan Act contains no provisions for demolishing old but serviceable college buildings and replacing them with something that looks and smells nice.

The Governor of the state is already coming under scrutiny and criticism for misdirecting federal Covid pandemic relief money into the general fund.  Now she seems okay with tapping a fund for rescuing people adversely affected by the pandemic for a new building to ostensibly house some small college programs and the office that recruits and admits students.  That raises the question of when keeping up luxurious appearances takes precedent over people in dire need.  

Northern State has some nice new buildings and some slick new athletic stadiums.  However, it attained those facilities through the efforts of a president who raised $110 million, and then, about a year ago, was summarily fired with no explanations by anyone about the circumstances.  Usually, the faculty require a public explanation to protect their own reputations for operating under the standards of academic probity and freedom that define an accredited institution.  The current faculty project, whether intended or not, an obsequious passivity.  The symptoms of political dominance of the institution are pronounced.

The federal government must approve the use of money from the American Rescue Plan.    This seems unlikely because the Plan specifically denies the use of its funds for what NSU proposes:

a State shall maintain support for elementary and secondary education, and for higher education (which shall include State funding to institutions of higher education and State need-based financial aid, and shall not include support for capital projects or for research and development or tuition and fees paid by students)

The NSU people may have found an exemption to that clause, but I can't find one.  So, if the project is dependent upon the federal government, the money doesn't seem likely to come from the Rescue Plan.