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The growth proposed now has nothing to do with the growth under Rudder.
But is has everything to do with the state's population growth.
In 1980 A&M had 33.5k students when the population of Texas was about 15M. With 56k students on campus today, the ratio of students/population is exactly the same. By 2030 when the state population is projected to be 33M, A&M will need to have 73k students to keep the same market share. But today's Texas economy needs far more engineers and STEM workers than the economy of 1980. We're not going to become a diploma mill.
With all due respect to the A&M and its student population of 1980, it wasn't exactly challenging Berkeley or Virginia or you name it well renowned and respected school.
Anyways, the growth between 1980 and 2015 was 22.5 thousand. That's 22.5 thousand over 35 years. That's 750 students per year...and that includes our huge growth in just the past few school years.
Last year we had less 53,000, counting Qatar, Galveston, Law, and distance education. Now you say we have 56,000? That's 3,000 in one year.
Take out this past year and we grew by 19.5 thousand over 29 years. That's 672 additional students per year. We grew by nearly 5 times that pace in the past year.
The fear isn't necessarily that we'll get too big. While that is a fear, a major part of it is that we will get too big, too fast.
There is a lot more than matching raw state population growth that goes into sustainable growth.
Another fact I find interesting is this: In 1980, there were 3 schools in the A&M system. Now, there are 11 (or 12 if you count Qatar). There are plenty of places available now to keep the A&M system's "market share" without risking the quality of the main campus. And shoot, we might even IMPROVE the quality of the main campus by being careful with enrollment and growing other campuses.
And that's what I don't understand entirely. Yes, we need more STEM graduates, but our main campus isn't the only organ we have to meet that need. It is far from it. The opportunity exists to meet that need, but also sustain and hopefully improve the quality of the main campus. And that is by building up other campuses.
The UT-System is doing it that way by capping enrollment at UT-Austin and improving UT-Dallas, UT-Arlington and others....and I think we can to.
Is it harder with only 1/3rd of the PUF? Yeah, but there's a way to make it happen. I'm sure of it.
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Rice is sometimes called the Harvard of the South. If we want to compete with them we will need to match their enrollment of about 6,500. That's not who we are.
No, we wouldn't. Rice is small and Rice is a good place to receive an education, but being that small isn't a necessity.
The other so-called "Southern Ivies" have 14, 15,000+ students.
Of the "public ivies", Berkeley has something like 36,000. UNC something like 30,000, UT-Austin of course has 50,000.
A lot of them have a larger portion of graduate students, yes.
