Texas Boosted 6 More Universities to National Research Status and We Cannot Slow Down Now

Since 2009, Texas has tripled — from three to nine — the number of universities that have received the prestigious Carnegie R1 classification, which places those nine Texas universities among the nation's 130 premier research universities. In addition, last summer, the University of Texas at Dallas met the rigorous standards to join our state's National Research University Fund, along with Texas Tech and University of Houston. As a result of faculty and research achievements, the University of Texas at Arlington is approaching National Research University Fund eligibility. Texas is making great strides, and we cannot afford to slip backwards.Eight public emerging research universities, Texas Tech, Texas State, UT Arlington, UT Dallas, University of Texas at El Paso, University of Texas at San Antonio, University of Houston and University of North Texas, are helping to educate our rising generation. Together with University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M, those institutions graduate over 67,000 students each year. In addition to transforming minds, those eight emerging research universities are factories of innovation, conducting more than $786 million in annual research, and are magnets for bright students, life-changing professors and award-winning researchers.The success of our emerging tier one universities didn't happen by accident or overnight. In 2009, the Texas Legislature passed, and Governor Rick Perry signed into law, House Bill 51 to create the Tier One Competition, a performance-based framework to encourage new tier one national research universities. To advance our state's public emerging research universities, among other programs, HB 51 established National Research University Fund and the Texas Research Incentive Program, a matching fund that uses state dollars to incentivize private gifts for research. In every subsequent session, lawmakers have continued to invest in our public emerging research universities and attract private support through the Texas Research Incentive Program.The first decade of the Tier One Competition has been a triumph for Texas. HB 51 has attracted more than $1.1 billion to our public emerging research universities, according to Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board data. To the relief of taxpayers, 60 percent of this investment — $670 million — has come from private sources whose generosity has been matched by over $325 million in Texas Research Incentive Program funds. The National Research University Fund has contributed $125 million to eligible emerging research universities, even as the fund balance has increased from $515 million in 2009 to over $750 million in 2019.  Continue reading...