Closing the Gaps: Texas Needs More Nationally Ranked Research Institutions

By Sam Bohmfalk in Promote & Protect on August 15, 2011 at 12:27 pm | No Comments

In October 2000, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board released Closing the Gaps, a plan to address education inequalities within the state, and between Texas and other states. This is the third in a four-part series analyzing UT-Austin’s progress toward reaching Closing the Gaps goals.

Over the past 10 years, the state of Texas has made no appreciable progress toward the Closing the Gaps in Excellence goal of substantially increasing the number of nationally recognized programs and services.

The Closing the Gaps report identifies rankings from U.S. News and World Report and The Center for Measuring University Performance as the most comprehensive measures of national recognition.

UT has maintained a ranking between 13th and 17th on the last 10 U.S. News and World Report listings of the best colleges in America. For 2011, UT is ranked number 13. Texas A&M has consistently placed between 17th and 27th on the same list.

UT-Dallas and Texas Tech both made the list at 72nd and 85th place, respectively, but only because U.S. News‘ rankings were expanded to include the top 75 percent of national universities, up from 50 percent previously.

The Arizona-based Center for Measuring University Performance has ranked UT anywhere from a high of sixth to a low of 14th, where it currently is listed.

Texas A&M, UT Southwestern Medical School, and UT’s MD Anderson Cancer Center are the only research institutions that have made the CMUP top-35 list over the past 10 years.

Click the above graph to see how UT stacks up over time. Read the full Closing the Gaps 2011 progress report below.

2011 Closing the Gaps Report

Tags: closing the gaps, texas higher education coordinating board, us news & world report rankings