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re: Thanks to SEC and Heisman - A&M receives record 37,000 applications

Posted on 2/2/13 at 12:27 am to
Posted by texashorn
Member since May 2008
13122 posts
Posted on 2/2/13 at 12:27 am to
quote:

Thus that money needs to be spent for what it was intended for, to provide for a high quality education for as many Texans as possible.

That is not for what the PUF was intended.

The point of the PUF was to ensure "a university of the first class," as mentioned in the Texas Constitution, NOT to educate as many people as possible.

That is my central argument.

Is that fair? Not necessarily.

But the more you water down the funds, the less effective those funds will be, whether by spreading them across many campuses, or spreading it on one campus among many students.

While bringing up the rear, you will be tearing down the top.

I am adamantly opposed to sharing any more of the PUF amongst more schools, obviously (I don't think it should have ever been shared with other system schools, either). Nor do I want UT to grow.


quote:

The more relevant issue for Texas is they don't like to spend the (PUF) money at all but instead hoard it to continue to grow it where it is now twice the size of any other public school

Hoard it? The principal isn't supposed to be touched.

The interest and dividends from the PUF goes into the Available University Fund, and that is the money spent.

It doesn't make financial sense to draw down the principal on the PUF, because you'd be effectively reducing the interest and dividends realized.

Also, I am not aware that any of the interest and dividends from the Permanent University Fund is reinvested back into the principal. As far as I know, every penny of it is spent.

Here is UT Chancellor Cigarroa from 2012:

quote:

So I was very pleased when The University of Texas System Board of Regents decided to hold resident undergraduate tuition at current levels for the next two years at UT Austin while also allocating $6.6 million per year from alternative revenue sources—an amount equivalent to my proposed tuition recommendation. (The Regents approved tuition increases for out-of-state undergraduate and graduate students at UT Austin.) The Board was able to direct special funds to UT Austin from the Available University Fund (AUF), thanks primarily to oil and gas revenue produced from UT’s West Texas lands and very positive investment returns this year. It was a win-win-win decision. Families were relieved not to see an increase in tuition bills, UT Austin received equivalent funding, and the Board bent the rising cost curve of higher education.

LINK

The University of Texas held the line on tuition for in-state students by dipping into the PUF (AUF) to cover increased costs.



quote:

Instead Texas likes to charge more in tuition and fees and more recently get the taxpayers of Austin to pay for a new teaching hospital instead of using that PUF money.

Not only does my above example refute that directly, but then there's this in relation to the medical school --

quote:

The UT System Board of Regents voted to provide a UT-Austin medical school $30 million annually through its first eight years and $25 million each year thereafter. The money, regents said, would come from Permanent University Fund proceeds.

LINK
Another LINK

Part fed funds, part PUF, and part property taxes for the medical school.

Compare that to A&M, who is going to use partially a hotel tax assessed by local governments to remodel/rebuild/whatever their football stadium.

Which one is fishier? A government entity taxing the people for a medical school, or taxing the people for a FOOTBALL STADIUM?

Even more:
quote:

After a challenging legislative session last year resulting in 16.5 percent less state appropriations to UT Austin, the Regents allocated an additional $40.5 million over two years from the AUF to reduce the financial loss at UT. Added to a previous three-year Board AUF allocation of $75 million, this effectively restored the lost state funds. Other public universities in the country did not fare as well and raised tuition by double digits to accommodate losses.

LINK



Let's move to the next point.

quote:

Texas doesn't see the PUF as taxpayer money or belonging to the People of the State of Texas. They see it as THEIR money.

I know it's the state of Texas' money and land; this is a semantic argument, at best.

My point was that it was intended to benefit "The University of Texas," and the same state constitution that created the PUF included A&M as a branch of The University of Texas (it's all in Article 7 of the Texas Constitution.)

What I do find strange is that within a decade of finding oil on what was once thought relatively worthless land, and several decades (50 years) after the PUF's establishment, A&M sidled up and claimed a portion of the fund (the 2/3 UT, 1/3 A&M split).

Do you think A&M would have wanted a slice if oil had never been found?

quote:

A&M at least spends their money wisely, their endowment is still enormous and growing

The rate of growth for the UT and A&M systems' endowment is the same! It's the same pot of money, which is controlled by The University of Texas Investment Management Co. (UTIMCO).

quote:

Bringing up the Texas Constitution just shows your ignorance as well. You might as well talk about how the US Constitution originally had the Vice President as the 2nd largest vote getter or maybe the 3/5ths Compromise. Both were poorly conceived ideas that were soon amended.

Show me where the Texas Constitution was amended.

I wrote this earlier, and I will repeat it: for purely practical purposes, A&M was never part of The University of Texas.

But legally, it really wasn't until 1948 ( when the state legislature created the A&M System) that (strictly speaking legally) A&M was not a part of The University of Texas System.

The legislature never carried through on the Constitutional mandate, and even counteracted it by establishing separate boards of regents.

In 1931, while still Constitutionally part of The University of Texas and after oil money began rolling in in 1923, Texas A&M (after decades of avoiding any ties to UT) had an epiphany and staked its claim to the money, but continued to refuse to ever acknowledge any ties to UT.

That's like being a mistress on the side who takes money but never becomes "the wife," and all that that implies.
Posted by aggressor
Austin, TX
Member since Sep 2011
8714 posts
Posted on 2/2/13 at 9:43 pm to
So because the original intent of the PUF (which was basically worthless land when it was granted) was to create a "University of the First Class" Texas should not consider any changes no matter how big it gets or how large the population of Texas becomes?

Texas is the effectively the same size today as it was when I enrolled at A&M in 1989. Yet at the same time the PUF has exploded and there are 10 million more people in the State with over 500k new ones a year. Yet you think the solution is for Texas to stay the same size and share as little PUF money as possible?. That solution will result in a continued brain drain of the best and brightest in Texas because they won't have options for getting a Tier 1 or Tier II education?

Texas doesn't even need the money. It is severely limited on what it can be spent on in terms of buildings and infrastructure. It is disgusting as an Austin taxpayer I am going to have to pay even more taxes to pay for the new hospital because Texas wanted to use as little PUF money as possible. As I said, Texas treats the PUF as "their money" and not the people's money. You aren't a private school and your mission is to the people of the State.

It's pathetic you keep trying to make some bizarre point about how the Texas Constitution originally wrote how the school system would be structured seeing as how that is never how it has been implemented and Texas didn't even exist as a University until several years later when A&M was already functioning. The schools and systems are separate and always have been.
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