While the UT community has rightfully rallied against a set of misguided proposals, that support should not be allowed to fester into the kind of protectionist mentality that assumes that the University is infallible.
Amid a flurry of outside reports and think tank publications suggesting to universities ways to improve how they teach, it may be tempting to the casual observer to assume that UT lacks meaningful in-house ideas or ways to generate them.
Natalie Butler argues that UT students should fight proposed state higher education cuts to protect the presumed value of their UT degree. What Butler ignores is that higher education in America today is a massive upper middle-class welfare program.
Debating how to deal with a large budget shortfall during this legislative session, lawmakers pressured universities to be “more efficient.” Largely absent from this debate has been the pivotal role that college readiness plays in determining how “efficiently” a university’s teaching operation can be.
College tuition has been skyrocketing over the past decade, but Powers was not addressing this huge problem that college-bound Americans will face. Instead, he was attacking a proposed solution that dealt with improving productivity at public universities.
As the special session put the finishing touches on one of the most hotly-contested state budgets, the most powerful man in Texas government couldn’t be found within a coyote’s howl of the state.
Loren Campos: "Senate Bill 9, a bill that was added to the calendar for the special session, is part of the anti-Hispanic agenda the Texas GOP is carrying."