Higher education institutions are major economic engines in Texas. In addition to shaping the minds of the next generation of Texas leaders, colleges and universities are at the forefront of cutting edge research and innovation across industries. Texas has nine public universities with R1 status, a prestigious designation for top-tier research universities. Texas A&M University alone estimates its value to the Texas economy at $20.8 billion, equivalent to nearly 1% of the Texas gross state product (GSP).
Instead of fostering greater success and doing everything in their power to maintain our universities for generations to come, Texas lawmakers are waging war against them, which they lampoon as bastions of liberalism and violators of free speech. In recent years, lawmakers have passed laws to allow guns on college campuses (2015’s S.B. 11); to outlaw diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices and staff (2023’s S.B. 17); and removing university oversight of speakers at campus events (2019’s S.B. 18). All the while, state leaders bully universities to get in line with threats to take away their funding or their professors’ tenure. Funding for non-flagship universities and Texas’s nine Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) consistently lag behind Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) by nearly $2500 per student. In March 2024, the University of Texas at Austin announced that it would lay off around 60 employees who previously worked in DEI, even though the university had previously taken those employees out of DEI roles and reassigned them elsewhere. Many students and staff believe the changes go far beyond what is required by the letter of the 2023 law.
As with K-12 education, Texas colleges and universities are a critical part of the infrastructure that businesses are looking for when deciding to move to Texas. Though not the only way to prepare young people for their careers, both employers and universities have long benefited from a symbiotic relationship that opens doors for students while helping employers recruit them for post-graduate work. The short-sighted decimation of Texas public institutions has wide-ranging consequences.
Extreme Texas laws threaten to send our best and brightest students, professors, and university staff out of the state. Lawmaker’s threats to get rid of tenure and universities’ bending to the state have made Texas institutions less appealing to academics who might otherwise work here, teach here, and–critically–bring their research grant dollars here. Students may prefer to apply to colleges and universities that are allowed to be more inclusive–and they may not come back. Roughly 50% of college graduates live and work in the same metro area that they went to college, and 67% remain in the same state. This “Red State Brain Drain” costs the state some of its best talent, and that isn’t lost on those in tech and other burgeoning industries. Those who do stay in-state will face an academic environment where professors and staff are unsure what they can teach students–even if the material is factual and true–without running afoul of an activist Legislature.
Businesses understand the value of strong, independent, and inclusive public universities. Billionaire businessman and Texan Mark Cuban has strongly and publicly backed DEI initiatives in the workplace, which he believes increase the likelihood of finding the most qualified candidates, build public trust with companies, and build inclusive work environments that bring out the best–and the most productivity–in employees. The numbers back up some of Cuban’s assertions. McKinsey, which has reported on diversity in the workplace since 2014, notes that companies in the top-quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to see greater financial returns than their peers with less diversity. Companies understand that diversity is a strength. Texas lawmakers generally do not.