There are a LOT of universities in Texas, so there's something for everyone. The issue with putting all the focus on UT and A+M is that 1) they're overcrowded and 2) they're getting a huge chunk of money designated for education in the state. UT and A+M are both amazing schools, but so are UTD and Texas Tech (for example). They shouldn't be thrown to the side just because they're not the superpower universities in the state.

I think it's also necessary to have at least one Tier 1 university in each of the large Texas metros (we have 1 in Austin and now 1 in Houston. There are 3 candidates in the D/FW area and 1 in San Antonio). We lose a lot of students to Oklahoma, Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana schools because of this.

I can't find the original TX for Tier One website, but here's the FB group (there are some updates with interesting info): link

I like the Virginia system of naming each school, other than its research flagship, after prominent person/s or concepts rather than locations. It allows each public school to build a unique brand, and none of them is marked as a particular tier due to being "directional." True, you can't tell from the name that James Madison University is located in Harrisonburg, but most of these schools serve an in-state market anyway, and in-state students already know or they can figure it out easily.

I think it would be great for the directionals in Illinois to become Abraham Lincoln U., Adlai Stevenson U., Jane Addams U....but nobody asked me, and I'm sure many alumni are attached to the existing names.

We can add Northwestern University to University of Southern California as another elite private exception to the rule that directions hurt prestige. Both schools are older than the oldest public schools in their respective cities.
________
Black Silver Surfer Vaporizer

Is that why, exactly?

I'm not being difficult--I ask because Florida is a state with a similar situation, but the people I know who chose to go to schools in surrounding states did so not because the Florida schools didn't offer what they needed or they couldn't get into UF or FSU. They just didn't want to go to school in Florida. The same thing applies to the (granted, much smaller number of) people I know from TX who chose to go to school in Oklahoma--either they didn't want to go to school in Texas or everyone in their family went to UT or A&M and they wanted to try something new.

I wouldn't, because Northwestern no longer really refers to a direction. It certainly did when it was founded, but now it's in the Midwest and isn't even in North-Western Illinois.

Right. Northwestern never referred to the part of the state it is in, which is what I think of when I think "directional school." It never referred to a direction at all. It was named for the former Northwest Territory.

I think it's no secret that Texans are very proud of our state, so there are a lot of people who would like to stay in state. The problem arises when they're only given 2 "good" options (UT + A+M). Even though there are several top schools in the state who would love to attract these students, many top-performing students end up leaving the state in order to get into "real" schools.

I'm not saying that every university in the state needs to be a high-level research institution. For a state with 25 million-ish residents and 3 of the largest cities/metros in the country, though, we need more than two. Using DFW as an example (since I went to school here and currently live in the area), we have almost 7 million residents and 5 major universities in the area. There's a huge concentration of companies, several of them F500. I think the region would get a boost, though, if one of the universities in the area was more recognized. That would bring top-performing students who will (likely) eventually become top-performing employees at our companies.

I wonder if the OU students from UT/A+M families were ever invited back home :p

So now I've learned something today. Can I go home now?
No one wants to go to Adlai Stevenson U. Just ain't happening. And I can't see SIUC/E, EIU, WIU, or alternately ISU giving up their names. They're well known for different things and would lose a lot of identity that way. I haven't seen a lot of pressure for that sort of change here either, but I'm not attending one of them so I don't know.

LOL, one of the families (an Austin family) has UT and OU rocking chairs on the patio. A house divided indeed. :)

How does UH fit in there? I know of a lot of UH-educated architects here in NYC, so it's got to have a pretty decent A-school.

There is UVA and then UVA-Wise. George Mason in Fairfax was a UVA branch campus when it was first founded. William and Mary was initially a private college. Although they were and are publics, James Madison and Mary Washington were all single-sex as was UVA. UVA only went co-ed in the 70s and of course VMI even later than that. There are still a couple of women's colleges and one all-male college in the Commonwealth but they are all private.

This is my perception as well -- some percentage of the high school population really wants to go to a flagship, period. They'd rather go to OU, LSU, or one of their peers than what they see as a non-flagship or second-choice Texas school.

Yes -- but they are named after important people rather than along the lines of Mississippi University for Women. That's what I like. Texas also has Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, which are "directional" schools in terms of the role they serve within the state but have their own brand names. George Mason Law School, for example, has in my view had an easier time branding itself than it would have if the university were still called the Northern Virginia University Center.
________
Live Sex Webshows

This would only work in many places if the people the schools were (re)named after had been dead for a very very very long time, and I'm sure even in those cases there would be fights over it.

One of the SSHE presidents wanted to change the name of his school to Prominent Donor U (Prominent Donor has prominently donated to multiple schools in the area, not just this one, and he's NOT an alumnus of this school) and to say it didn't go over well is an understatement. SSHE schools are former teachers college and all follow the naming convention Townname University of PA. There's really no way to change one without the dominoes falling one by one and all of them changing, and I shudder to think what some of the names would end up being.

UH is the 3rd largest university in the state now, and they've been working overtime to get up to T1 status. They got it a month or so ago, so at least we have a public T1 in Houston now.

I'm somewhat familiar with the school's B-school, but I'm not sure where they stand re: architecture.

I work at OU, and just from seeing license plates...it seems like there are more Texans on campus that Oklahomans at times. Could just be that all the Texas students have cars and so I notice them more?


Can I also admit to being somewhat looking forward to recruitment season? Just because the experience of that on campus is going to be so incredibly different from my small little Ohio locals campus.

And here in Michigan, U of M-Dearborn and U of M-Flint are actually sub-campuses of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). Eastern Michigan U, Central Michigan U, Western Michigan U and Northern Michigan U are independent of each other and of U of M. It would really mess people up to change those names up. Interestingly, we have no Southern Michigan U. Wayne State, one of our other public universities could have been Southern.

I would absolutely agree with that.

Because of the 10% rule we're changing who goes to our flagships. Where kids with lesser grades would have followed their parents to one of the flagships and ended up with a respected degree, now they don't have that option. So, a lot of them have to go our of state or settle for a second tier school. The responsible ones end up out of state and the left overs end up at places like my alma mater - which is I think an improvement over when I was there and I think half the student body seemed like they had previously failed out of UT or A&M.

That reshaping of the student body at the two primary schools has also pushed a few top-10% grads out of state for other reasons as well. There's some perception that it's just not the same. I can't say if they're also taking a lot more out-of-state students, but if you've been to Austin lately, it seems like Californians took the place over. There's a more significant chunk of students from there then I've seen before.

As far DFW, I think TCU & SMU cover the flagship role there. I know they're VERY expensive privates, with UTA & UTD picking up the slack but very far down the list.

I don't classify UNT as part of DFW, but I do think they can be an emerging institution. They are head of their own univ-system with a lot of freedom. If they'd could fix their football program they might get a little more respect.

It's the same situation in Houston with Rice versus UH (and HBU floating around unnoticed).

I think though if you're looking for flagships in major metro areas, that tends to not work as well. They're best in small to medium sized towns where they have more influence and regional draw.