UT System is balancing research, student success. New college rankings prove it | Opinion
From college football to barbecue, Americans love rankings. And each year, a number of media outlets release highly detailed rankings of universities, as well as their individual departments and degree programs.
Students and parents pore over these rankings, as do university leaders and communicators. They have outsized importance in many families’ decisions about college — and how college presidents talk about their institutions. Fortunately, there are meaningful comparisons more important than these rankings, and when it comes to a new gold standard for measuring universities, Texas is leading the nation.
I recently participated in the release of the new Carnegie Classifications for Student Access and Earnings. Carnegie has long been the standard for higher education leaders when it comes to measuring — not ranking — research prowess at American universities. But today, as colleges face a new level of scrutiny of cost and value, the focus will, and should, include measures of access, affordability and success.
That’s where Carnegie’s new Student Access and Earnings designation comes in. It measures the extent to which institutions provide access to students and their relative earnings post-graduation. Colleges that excel in both higher access and higher earnings are designated “opportunity colleges and universities,” or OCUs.
Texas has 35 designated OCUs, the second most of any state. I’m delighted that five of those are University of Texas institutions: UT Arlington, UT El Paso, UT Tyler, UT RGV, and UT San Antonio.
And when we combine the new OCU classification with Carnegie’s classification for institutions’ research output, where “R1” is the top designation, the picture gets even better for Texas. Only 19 public universities in the nation are both R1 and OCU, and three of them are part of the UT System (UT Arlington, UT El Paso, and UT San Antonio).
At a time when questions about the return on investment from higher education have reduced confidence in our nation’s colleges and universities, Texas is providing a powerful response. Across our institutions, students earn valuable degrees that open doors in many growing fields, while our faculty members conduct ground-breaking research that advances Texas’ economy and our nation’s global competitiveness. Our commitment to delivering value to students and advancing research excellence is not aspirational — it is a measurable reality.
For years, many universities have pursued R1 status at all costs, sometimes at the cost of access and opportunity. As higher education rebuilds trust among the American people, more universities should seek out an OCU designation with the same fervor that they seek R1 classification. Indeed, University of Texas institutions demonstrate that you can pursue both.
Moving forward at UT, we’ll continue to keep an eye on the rankings, and we’ll continue to celebrate our wins. But more importantly, we’re laser focused on how we will strive to continuously balance access, outcomes, and excellence. The payoff goes beyond individual students. When we help students, we also boost families, foster engaged communities, and cultivate a more vibrant Texas economy.
Higher education is at a crossroads. With more people calling Texas home and new industries reshaping the job market, we need to make sure our colleges open doors and deliver real returns. Public universities are rising to meet that challenge, and continued support and investment is essential.
Texas’ public universities are demonstrating how they can be both engines of economic mobility and centers of outstanding research. Access and excellence are not mutually exclusive goals. Texas has a model that does both. We should recognize it, celebrate it, and — above all — strengthen it.
