GreenFeet12

none of what you are saying is remotely close to being true 1. UT Dallas would be the Texas university that is closest to AAU like metrics 2. UH and Texas Tech would be second, but each has their own issues....they both have issues with total research funding, they both have issues with freshman metrics (UH slightly better), they both have issues with graduation rates (Texas Tech better), and they both have issues with the quality of the faculty the AAU does not get excited about universities that buy in members of the National Academies as UH has done and Tech to lesser degree because that shows nothing about the university and their ability to actually have an environment that fosters that type faculty it just shows they can raise some money and hire them in 3. there is not a single AAU metric where north Texas would be ahead of Texas Tech or UH and they are dramatically behind both in pretty much every metric prior to this new legislation when the NRUF was still up and going Tech and UH both qualified at the earliest opportunity...UTD was next, UTA after that and then UTSA just qualified that leaves Texas State, UTEP, and north Texas that have not qualified......the most difficult metric to meet and the one that cannot be easily "accelerated" is the $45 million in restricted research north Texas is far and away in last place in that metric and while 3 of the other 4 metrics are met without that $45 million in restricted research the others are meaningless north Texas has grown their research (and development which is not the same as research) in recent years, but it has been almost entirely self funded and that is meaningless for the NRUF and even more meaningless for the AAU https://reportcenter.highered.texas.gov/reports/legislative/national-research-university-fund-eligibility-2022/ there is the latest report for the 2021 year released in 2022 I am not sure there will be another report since the NRUF is now gone Texas State could easily meet the freshman class metric with a few changes and they are about to meet the endowment metric (another that is not easy to meet if a university is poor at fund raising like north Texas is) UTSA was the first to qualify for NRUF funding using the "5 graduate programs with AAU like metrics" and I believe that was the plan for Texas State as well so as soon as they hit $45 million in restricted research they would have adjusted to meet "freshman class" they would have raised the money needed for the endowment (about $60 million needed), they are PKP members and that would have been 4 of the 6 metrics needed their endowment is $343 million, but north Texas is down to $270 million because of the market https://www.nacubo.org/-/media/Nacubo/Documents/research/2022-NTSE-Public-Tables--Endowment-Market-Values--FINAL.ashx?la=en&hash=362DC3F9BDEB1DF0C22B05D544AD24D1C44E318D but still the $45 million in restricted research is a long ways off in 2022 the restricted research expenditures for Texas State were $41,811,801 and for north Texas $24,671,082 when it comes to research per faculty member, federal research, competitively awarded research (what the NRUF was calling restricted research), and a number of other factors UTD, Texas Tech, UH, and even UTA, UTSA, and Texas State....and even UTEP in some are all well ahead of north Texas and these are the same types of things that the AAU looks at they normalize the total numbers to a per faculty member basis, they discount self funded research, they do not look at "development" (only research), and they do not just look at total numbers of doctoral degrees awarded for AAU membership in Texas it is UTD <-- Texas Tech/UH <-------------- UTA UTSA <--- Texas State, UTEP, north Texas in those groupings.....UTD and Texas Tech and UH would be in LONG before any of the others and UTA and UTSA would be next in line 4. the AAU cares a great deal less about humanities than they care about bio sciences, engineering, and medical research.....they care very little about "publishing" other than that is expected when you are doing top level research in the areas they care the most about in addition it was said that they "do not count agricultural research" and that would "hurt Texas State and Texas Tech. That is 100% false......Texas State does very little agricultural research for one thing and while Tech does a great deal more the AAU does not ignore that research because it is "agriculture research" what they specifically ignore is statutorily awarded research dollars that are given out to universities that are Land Grant Universities neither Texas State or Texas Tech are land grant universities.....the "unfairness" claim that Nebraska made was 100% false.....the AAU discounts that non-competitively awarded/statutorily awarded Land Grant money specifically because it is not competitively awarded......and they discount that for 100% of their members that are Land Grant universities (and there are many in the AAU).....so it was not discounted because it was "agriculture" it was discounted because it was not competitively awarded 5. as for the medical school issue....this was an issue for Nebraska, but again their claims were 100% false. Nebraska had 10+ years to merge their medical school under the main campus and in The State of Nebraska only UN-Omaha would have had any "pull" at all to try and stop that from happening and it would not have been near enough if the state wanted to do it.......the reason it was not done is because the UN Medical school is not all that productive in research and their faculty is not filled with well known leaders in their fields of expertise the AAU evaluates members and non-members against "peers" that are members and not members so that means a public university in a state with only 2 or 3 public universities like Nebraska, Iowa, or Arizona will not be evaluated in all areas against public schools in Texas or California where there are 30+ public universities they also evaluate their public and private universities based on having a medical school or not having one....so Rice in some areas of evaluation is compared to Cal Tech, SMU, Baylor, TCU, Tulsa, and what whatever other AAU or non AAU member private schools with a strong reputation that DO NOT have a medical school.....while Tulane is compared to Vanderbilt, Duke, Stanford, and other AAU and non-AAU private schools that have a medical school the AAU does the same for public universities as well.....so TCOM that is not all that high in research and that does not have a great deal of well known faculty and that is a DO school (not known for research at all) would not help in any merger because they would change the factors of evaluation to being evaluated against public universities with medical schools instead of those without and the ones in the AAU with medical schools and the top ones not in the AAU with medical schools are doing a great deal more research than a merged TCOM/north Texas would be doing the merger of UTSA and UT-HSCSA was not done because just "getting NRUF funding" was not the goal of that program the goal was for those universities to actually elevate themselves in a meaningful way that benefits them and The State of Texas....just merging those two entities to get STATE funding while doing nothing else different would accomplish nothing.....if it had been to gain FEDERAL dollars that would be a different situation entirely with the NRUF program gone and with UTSA meeting the requirements now anyway I would not be surprised if a merger did not happen in the future, but probably after The State of Texas changes the formula funding mechanism for medical schools to be more like 4 year universities so there is not a reduction in funding for a merger north Texas is not close to being an AAU member and there are a number of universities in Texas that are better positioned based on all of the metrics that the AAU evaluates and based on the degree programs those universities offer in engineering and life sciences and based on the normalized "per faculty member" metrics that the AAU uses concentrating on humanities and self funded research and putting out a lot of doctoral students in the soft and social sciences will not help one bit nor will forming partnerships with school districts in the DFW metromess to allow students in with lower admission metrics nor will hiring a few National Academy Members that are twIce or thrice retired from the universities where they made a name for themselves and paying them a lot to teach a class or two here and there....all the more so of Texas A&M hires them away soon after