Roeder & Company, LLC announces the closing of a $10 million Federal NMTC financing for Heritage University’s campus expansion in Toppenish, Washington. Roeder & Company sourced the allocation from Dakotas America, LLC. Heritage is a private, nonprofit university serving rural and low-income students, many of them the first in their families to attend college. The university has a three-phase strategic plan in place to increase the undergraduate population from 800 currently to 2,000 students over the next five years by constructing new buildings on campus, expanding scholarship support, and enhancing academic programs and student services.
The NMTC net-derived benefit was used to complete the funding of Phase II, which involves the construction of two new buildings on campus that will expand its health science curriculum and provide administrative offices for current and to-be-hired faculty.
Heritage serves communities where rates of higher education attainment by people over the age of 26 is only 8% as compared to the national average of 25%. These students may take longer than average to complete college because they need pre-college coursework, or they may need flexible class schedules to accommodate lifestyles that often already include family and work. These facts sometimes make it more difficult for the university to finance capital projects as Heritage cannot raise revenue because tuition rates need to remain affordable for the low-income community.
“Heritage provides the support and encouragement necessary to guide students to graduation, and this project will greatly enhance our ability to reach more individuals in the low-income community,” said Dr. John Bassett, President of Heritage University. “Removing barriers is a core tenet of our day-to-day decisions, and the NMTC financing removed any remaining barriers to achieving our Phase II strategic goals.”
”We worked nearly two years with the university and its staff to locate and close allocation for this project,” said Roeder & Company CEO Reynold Roeder. “This one was especially rewarding as it aligns so well with our mission to facilitate investments in low-income communities that increase opportunities for education and technical training.”