"Governor Deval Patrick has asked the state pension fund to invest $50 million and will ask Harvard University and other local colleges to invest millions more to provide student loans to thousands of families struggling to pay college tuition bills that are due in the coming weeks," The Boston Globe reports. "Patrick's 11th hour proposal, floated among key officials yesterday, would prop up the troubled 26-year-old Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority, which announced last week that it would be unable to provide student loans for this school year because of turmoil in the nation's credit markets. The proposal would entail the investment funds buying portions of a $425 million bond sale that MEFA is planning this month. The agency would use the proceeds to finance student loans."