In 2000, Texas higher education in Texas was languishing behind other states and a plan was adopted to “close the gaps” by 2015. A decade later, Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes tells the Tribune that significant change is still needed. Full Story
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In 2000, higher education in Texas languished compared to other states, and a plan was adopted to “close the gaps” by 2015. A decade later, the commissioner of higher education tells the Tribune that bold steps still need to be taken. But can we afford to take them? Full Story
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Topics in this week's TribCast include the Texas GOP convention, the ongoing back-and-forth between the Perry and White camps, and the near-dissolution of the Big 12 conference. Full Story
Now that the central question of tomorrow’s House Higher Ed Committee meeting on athletic conference realignments has been answered, Chairman Dan Branch says there's no need for the show to go on. Full Story
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State Sen. Jeff Wentworth calls new Texas State University System Chancellor Brian McCall a "Johnny-come-lately opportunist" and says he knows who should have gotten the job: state Sen. Jeff Wentworth. Full Story
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Shopping for a new athletic conference? Make sure the political alignment matches up with the school alignment. Full Story
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Your afternoon reading. Full Story
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Increasing numbers of college students are attending classes, and even completing some degree programs, online — an innovation that could be welcome in an era of rising enrollments and shrinking budgets. But virtual higher ed has its critics, who say the distance learning model will never match what one lawmaker terms the "interpersonal Aristotle style" of education. Full Story
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Ramsey on what the new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll says about the governor's race, education, immigration, and other issues; Grissom on a far West Texas county divided over Arizona's immigration law; Ramshaw talks health care reform and obesity in Texas with a legendary Dallas doctor; M. Smith on the Collin County community that's about to break ground on a $60 million high school football stadium; Aguilar on the backlog of cases in the federal immigration detention system; Philpott of the Green Party's plans to get back on the ballot; Hu on the latest in the Division of Workers' Comp contretemps; Mulvaney on the punishing process of getting compensated for time spent in jail when you didn't commit a crime; Hamilton on the fight over higher ed formula funding; and my sit-down with state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin: The best of our best from May 24-28, 2010. Full Story
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Should we base the funding of state universities on course completion rather than enrollment? The commissioner of higher education says yes. Some state lawmakers say no — not until we attack the manipulation of the financing formula by the higher ed lobby. Full Story
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More than two-thirds of Texans say their confidence in the state's public schools ranges from shaky to nonexistent, according to the new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. A majority of Texans believe that crime, low academic standards, lack of parental involvement and not enough funding are "major" problems that public schools face — but two-thirds say "too much religion in the schools" is not a problem. Full Story
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The top professors and administrators at Texas universities routinely earn between to $250,000 and $500,000 year, while presidents and chancellors earn up to $900,000, according to salary data for more than a dozen universities and university systems added today to the Tribune's public employee salary database. Some 57 employees at the University of Texas make more than $250,000; by contrast, only 13 employees at Texas Tech make that much. Full Story
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Today we're adding another 17 agencies to our government salaries database, an extra 67,000 workers who collectively earn $2.9 billion in public payroll. The database now has records on more than 550,000 employees working at 62 of the largest state agencies, cities, universities, counties and mass-transit authorities. Full Story
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Grissom on the transgender marriage conundrum, Hu on the workers' comp whistleblowers, M. Smith on the Texas GOP's brush with debt, Garcia-Ditta on why student regents should vote, Aguilar on the tripling of the number of visas given by the feds to undocumented crime victims, Hamilton on the paltry number of state universities with graduation rates above 50 percent, Ramshaw and Stiles on the high percentage of Texas doctors trained in another country, Ramsey and Stiles on congressmen giving to congressmen, Galbraith on how prepared Texas is (very) for a BP-like oil spill, and my conversation with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst: The best of our best from May 10 to 14, 2010. Full Story
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Would you turn all of your family's assets, its health and safety and future, or those of your friends and neighbors, over to an unknown university student, even one carefully selected? Of course not. Full Story
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It took decades to get Texas lawmakers to allow students to sit on each university system's board of regents — and only on the condition that they can't vote. But most other states with student regents do grant voting privileges. Full Story
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For years, Texas universities have focused on getting more students onto to their campuses. The hard part, it turns out, is getting them to leave in no more than six years. Full Story
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When Gov. Rick Perry announced the establishment of the Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine, a public-private partnership between the Texas A&M University System and Lexicon Genetics, he said the $50 million high-level mouse laboratory, paid for through the Texas Enterprise Fund that he controls, would “attract millions of dollars for medical research and lead to the development of life-saving medical treatments and therapies” for everything from diabetes to cancer. Five years later, depending on who you ask, TIGM has either been a massive taxpayer-subsidized boondoggle or a blessing to scientists across the globe. Full Story
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Barack Obama will apparently name his solicitor general, Elena Kagan, the former dean of Harvard Law School, to replace the retiring John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court, once again bypassing UT Law grad Diane Wood, who has now been on the president's short list twice. Full Story
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If you're wondering about the economic impact of the federal military base realignment and closure effort, look only as far as Texas, where two cities with shuttered bases are struggling to keep residents employed and spirits up, while one city with an expanded base is booming. Full Story
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