A big day for three North Texas universities

In 2009, after helping push a successful campaign for Legislative funding to boost more Texas universities to top-tier national status, James Spaniolo, then the president of The University of Texas at Arlington, said climbing to the top would take 12 to 15 years at his school.

Almost seven years later, the climb is going pretty well for UT Arlington, as it is for the University of North Texas in Denton and UT Dallas.

All three institutions reached a significant goal on Monday when the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education named them to its list of doctoral universities with “highest” research spending. Texas Tech University in Lubbock also made the list.

It was a well-deserved day of celebration to recognize their hard work.

There’s more to do. Another marker of “Tier One” status is membership in the invitation-only Association of American Universities, which in Texas so far includes only UT Austin, Texas A&M and private Rice University.

This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 5:44 PM with the headline "A big day for three North Texas universities."