I agree with some points, but disagree with others

they do not need SDSU to be UCSD or Long Beach to be Irvine, but the reality is the infrastructure already exist at SDSU and Long Beach to offer PhD programs with little added expense in SELECT areas and doing so would benefit those schools greatly

when schools are 34,000 and 38,000 students the infrastructure is there to offer PhDs with little real additional cost provided that administrative creep is constricted (a major issue to deal with) and not offering those degrees hurts the reputation of the school in terms of research prestige and in terms of the faculty it can attract

the issue is to restrict the PhD offerings at those schools to areas of need and select areas of specialization

examples of this in Texas would be Texas State and Geography and Aquatics.......the aquatics simply comes from taking advantage of their geographic location and the Geography program comes from a past president of the university that felt that Geography was not emphasized enough at public universities in Texas and built that program up by making sure the core of the undergrad included running students through the geography department

doing so over decades built that program to the point where it made no sense and was detrimental to the attractiveness of faculty recruitment to not offer a PhD program.....so that was one of the first they offered

they have continued to up their PhD offerings in select areas of need and strength since then (like aquatics) or a materials science (wafer fab based) engineering PhD

the flip side is the north Texas state model which is to offer a ton of PhDs under any subject under the sun with most of them being of no use or demand in the real world and cranking out a bunch of soft and social science PhDs while doing next to nothing in terms of research funding and producing PhDs that are not in demand

unlike what attack coog said the north Texas research profile in terms of dollars is stagnant and was declining for a several year run

in 2013 they did $49.5 million in research and development and that declined annually to $37.1 in 2016 and is $43.8 in 2017

Texas State on the other hand steadily went from $37 in 2013 to $60.7 in 2017

in 2008 north Texas State did $18 million to growing to the $43.8 in 2017

by comparison Texas State went from $19.3 to $60.7 and Texas Tech from $60.1 to $191.5

last I checked Texas State offers 12 Doctoral programs (including EdDs) with total research and development of ($60.7), Tech 50 ($191), north Texas state 37 ($43.8), UTA 30 ($97), uH 54 ($169.4), UTD 30 ($113), UTSA 24 ($70)

so one school in particular is doing a terrible job of managing their PhDs and masters and the research productivity (and demand for) those degrees at a great expense to their students overall

there is a cost to offering a ton of masters and PhDs that are of no demand and that produce no sponsored research dollars and THAT is what needs to be contained by the state not the overall ability of offering of ANY of those programs at particular schools

it makes sense that Lamar has engineering related post graduate degrees being in the largest petro chemical complex in the world and that SHSU has advanced degrees in criminal justice.....it would not make sense for them to be offering advanced degrees in art history, psychology, or sociology

UHCL should have taken advantage of their NASA connection from the start like UTD did with Texas Instruments, but the UH main campus could not stand to see that happen and squandered that relationship to the point it is meaningless now.....The State of Texas should have corrected that long ago

that does not mean that UHCL needs to offer a ton of useless undergrad degrees of masters or PhDs

that is the advantage of UTD it was always restricted to try and toss UTA and north Texas and TWU a bone......restricted in the degrees offered and restricted in the enrollment requirements even for undergrads

well UTD took advantage of that and built those programs that were in demand and that met the needs and the expertise of the DFW metromess and enrolled top students.....well now Texas and the DFW metromess are large enough that there are enough top students available that do not want to go to a (bad) football factory that UTD can grow enrollment based on their top reputation and their research while north Texas state amps up their football spending at a cost to their students in terms of actual dollars and in terms of educational quality (their faculty to student ratio is through the roof and they are swapping out tenure track faculty for adjuncts and part time and non-tenure track faculty left and right).....and at a cost to research productivity all while still offering why too many PhDs overall in subjects that are simply a waste of time and money and while their "system" opens garbage universities, law schools, and system centers that no one wants or needs and that barely gain accreditation (or fail to so far with the law school)

Texas does not need a "California plan" to stop that they simply need to make schools do a lot more what Texas State and UTD have done and a lot less of what idiots like not so sharp at aggy are doing

the California plan worked in the early years, but it can use some adjustment now......the way Texas has done things has not worked well for the most part, but there are ways to correct that without going back in time to a California Plan type action

and really both Texas and California have a problem with waste....California simply funds their higher ed at a higher level overall than Texas and Texas could improve greatly simply by providing some better funding.....but the answer is not to just fund everyone at a higher level and have no controls over what those schools do with the money and where they try and meet their expansionist goals with north Texas state Little Elm and north Texas state Blue Ridge and north Texas state Prosper and north Texas state Pantego or aggy Bryan and aggy Blinn and aggy Dime Box and aggy Old Dime Box and aggy Lufkin

while California simply hands off massive funding to the UC schools that gets eaten up with abandon while they pat themselves on the back for making "good use" of money by holding back the overall potential of Cal State schools

just because a university does not have the hardest admissions standards as a university overall (many Cal state schools are actually hard to get into) that does not mean that they cannot have select programs with higher admissions standards to those programs or those programs having the reputation, strength, and faculty count to offer a high quality PhD program even while the university itself has a broader mission

using UTSA as an example when they were the only public school in San Antonio they were basically open enrollment for the most part....once aggy SA was built that made it possible for UTSA to raise admissions and they did so in one huge chunk that cost them in enrollment, but they pushed through that and now they are getting some enrollment gains based on a better overall reputation

UTA and Texas State can learn from that and they need to start bumping up their admissions standards slightly (not in one chunk like UTSA) and over time they will benefit

north Texas state can stay the catch all university in the metromess and gradually have their PhD programs cut to ones they can do well with and funding moved to undergrad areas or masters
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I agree there are cases. Sam Houston and Texas St. can justify Phds in criminal justice, Lamar in their O&G specialities (they've got a couple), Stephen F. Austin in Forestry. Texas St. can justify those related to the acquifer. And probably all of them can justify education-they were once "Teacher's colleges." But they don't need to do Accounting, History and Engineering. (UNT does have a good accounting program and maybe they can justify that as serving the needs of DFW like O&G in Beaumont-but Texas St. can't). And Lamar can probably justify their speech and hearing as nobody else in the state does that (probably hardly anyone in the south).

This is the latest NRUF report. Nobody is remotely close but UT-Arlington and they have the fewest graduate programs of the bunch. And unless someone gave them a quarter mil, they couldn't meet the requirements for at least two years and that is probably highly unlikely even then.
http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/reports/PDF/12329.PDF

For those not familiar, NRUF is a program to provide state funds for research to programs who qualify. Houston and Texas Tech qualified the first year. UT Dallas qualified last year.