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A half-dozen public universities in North Texas, straining under record enrollment growth, would receive more than $350 million for brick-and-mortar expansion projects under a state bond package that won preliminary approval in the Texas House Monday night. The $2.7 billion package of tuition revenue bonds would be the first since 2006 and would finance a vast backlog of construction projects at nearly 60 institutions, including the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth and the University of Texas at Arlington. All of us who have grown and pretty much everyone in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is growing are really, really counting on this relief, said UNT Chancellor Lee Jackson. Final passage by the House on Tuesday would send SB16 back to the Senate for expected concurrence for two minor amendments. It would then go to Gov. Rick Perry as lawmakers head into the home stretch of the 2013 Legislature before next Mondays adjournment. Tuition revenue bonds targeted for North Texas include: $66.6 million for an interdisciplinary research building at the UNT Health Science Center. $64.3 million for renovating and expanding a life science building at UTA. $73.6 million for a college of visual arts and design facility at the main UNT campus at Denton. $56 million for a library and student success center at UNT-Dallas. $56 million to the UNT system for college of law building renovation. $37.9 million for a new science and technology center at Texas Womans University at Denton. The 20-year bonds, which would cost the state approximately $450 million over the next two years, would finance the lions share of new project construction costs for universities that Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, said have been busting at the seams under the weight of burgeoning student populations. The growth has been especially pronounced in the Dallas Fort Worth metropolitan area, the fourth most populous region in the country. UNT at Denton serves 36,000 students and is looking toward future growth that would swell the institution to 45,000. UTA had 33,806 students in February, a 35 percent increase since 2008. TWU has grown by more than 80 percent from the fall of 2000 to a record enrollment of 15,135 students by the fall of 2012. Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/05/20/4871416/local-universities-in-line-for.html#storylink=cpy