Quote:
Originally Posted by Munchkin03
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 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
