(09-08-2019 08:07 PM)P5PACSEC Wrote: Back on topic. UH and Tech will not receive money from the PUF because Texans are content with 2 public AAU Universities.
It's a double edge sword but with the number of Californians moving here, maybe they can demand more funding for Texas schools so we can elevate 2 more schools to AAU status.
Would Texas Tech and Houston be more valuable in realignment discussions if both had AAU status?
they are not going to receive money from the PUF because so far politicians in Texas know that taking something from UT or aggy is not the proper way to improve other universities
the amount of money available from the PUF is wildly overblown and the UT System does themselves and UT Austin no favors by listing the entire endowment as a single amount on listings like the NACUBO endowment report
about $8.7 billion of the PUF is private endowments for the UT System components that would not be available to be shared no matter what happened with the PUF......that is over 25% of the value listed by the NACUBO right there
also the UT System never makes it known that a very large portion of the PUF covers statutory infrastructure formula funding for the PUF participating universities instead of that formula funding coming from general state revenues
so even if that part of the OUF was shared that simply means that general state revenues will be shared by more schools and anyone that knows how state government works doing that more than likely would lead to a funding DECREASE for many schools
using random dollar amounts as an example if Texas is allocating $10 billion for formula infrastructure funding for the state schools that are non-PUF participants and the PUF gets busted up
well when it comes time to allocate funding for state universities to cover formula infrastructure funding well the state would most likely still allocate $10 billion even though there would be about 12 more schools now drawing from that allocated amount of money.....so then you just reduce the dollar amount per "formula unit" and everyone gets a little smaller cut of that $10 billion
people need to stop pretending that state government would look and see there are not 12 (or so) more schools now drawing their infrastructure formula funding and allocate more dollars to make up for that
also in the case of UT, PVAMU, and aggy the amount of actual "extra dollars" for "excellence funding" is a great deal lower than what most people think.....it is not easy to calculate because of how the budgets are reported, but I think UT Austin gets about $150 million in "excellence funding" and aggy probably about half of that (harder still to figure for them because of PVAMU getting a cut)
it was said with the NRUF program that it would take $50 to $70 million per emerging research university per year to elevate any of them to BASELINE AAU like metrics (actual AAU membership is doubtful in the long term future if ever)
so when one looks at the enrollment of UT and aggy vs the enrollments of the Emerging Research Universities and when one considers they are WELL ABOVE baseline AAU metrics I would say that $75 to $150 million in additional funding (or possibly more) is a pretty good use of that money relative to the overall level of stature of those schools and their enrollments
so again crying about "unfair" when pretty much every state in the USA has public schools that are funded at different levels and some that are funded to be top research and academic universities is really not a strong argument especially when the amount of "unfair dollars" is really not nearly as massive as people believe it to be because of the harmful way that the UT System chooses to report their endowment numbers while giving little other explanation of what those numbers mean or how they break down
it is a much more intelligent argument to push for MORE for other schools at times when there are budget surpluses instead of always pushing to take from others....all the more so when there is an endowment mechanism in place now for other schools that can be utilized to protect money for the future just like the PUF has done so far
I doubt most californians care about Texas universities and the AAU many of them probably already have their degrees (which is why they are moving to Texas for good jobs and less taxes) or they do not have a degree at all and sadly they are moving to Texas because they are not intelligent enough to know that all those "great jobs" they read about in stupid news articles require specific degrees in difficult fields of study and they are not smart enough to know that NOWHERE is "cheap to live" when you have poor job skills and a spotty work history and even if one place is a bit cheaper it will really not make much of a meaningful difference in overall quality of life especially when one factors in the cost of relocation in terms of actual dollars and life/job interruption
plus in california the have been cutting university funding dramatically and being california they are keeping all the wasteful programs at their universities and "freebies" while damaging the actual productive parts of their universities.....many people moving to Texas would be just as likely to push for spending on hand outs and giveaways at universities vs pushing for more research and elevating overall reputation.....especially now that many of the "rankings" systems are moving more towards "what does a university provide for free" vs actually ranking quality of education
the answer is to push for more funding for the NRUF and to increase that endowment so that it throws off meaningful dollars that are endowed and thus harder for politicians to get their grubby hands on especially in times of lower revenues