The new president and Congress are looking closely at ways to spur economic growth and avoid a deeper economic recession. On the infrastructure side, their challenge is to find the quickest starting projects that have the greatest gain over the long term for our economy and society. As president-elect, Barack Obama proposed equipping tens of thousands of schools, community colleges and public universities with 21st-century classrooms, labs and libraries as a jump-start for the economy and a down payment on our nation's future economic competitiveness. Minnesota has plenty of worthy, "shovel-ready" projects in our public education systems.

At the University of Minnesota, they range from tuck-pointing walls and updating heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems to upgrading research laboratories with cutting-edge instrumentation and technology. Maintaining modern research facilities not only supports dozens of diversified trades and hundreds of small businesses and contractors, it helps universities like ours attract and retain talented students and world-class faculty and staff who generate nearly $700 million annually in research funding, largely from outside of Minnesota. This funding fuels the innovation that supports regional business and industry.

Our sister system, Minnesota State Colleges & Universities (MnSCU), each year delivers courses to more than 380,000 students in Minnesota, often in the students' home communities. To understand the pent-up demand for maintenance and renewal, consider that MnSCU maintains more than 292 acres of rooftops over its classrooms and academic buildings, and that the state's bonding bill last year was only able to meet half of the system's maintenance and renewal needs.

The Minnesota Association of School Administrators has identified more than 70 projects from around the state totaling nearly $800 million that would make critical updates to the safety and energy efficiency of pre- and K-12 classrooms and school buildings. In addition, some of our elementary and secondary schools still lack broadband Internet service, putting students at a real disadvantage.

Making concrete investments in buildings, facilities and even scientific instrumentation also would represent an investment in developing Minnesota's critical base of human capital -- enhancing the knowledge, skills and creativity that people bring to the workplace. In the global creative economy, human capital drives economic growth. Minnesota has had a proud legacy of strategically investing in its people; as a result, countless businesses have located and invested in Minnesota. Art Rolnick, senior vice president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, considers Minnesota's consistently high quality of life since the 1970s as a direct result of serious investment in public education that began in the late 1950s.

ROBERT H. BRUININKS, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA