Who is Sharps boss? Who hires or fires him??

This is who we should be contacting. Sharp is seriously a pompous politician who thinks he knows everything and all of us are not smart enough to know what is good for our school.

Sharp reports to the board of regents.

How much longer will he be in office?

Agree. Time for new leadership. BOR gets 3 new members every 2 years, right? And they vote on chancellor? Or is chancellor appointed, too?
Hard to tell if Sharp wanted this mainly to oversee the Kyle field redevelopment (as his face is plastered at every pc when it should've been the campus pres or AD) or is going to be a sob to get rid of.
Those acceptance standards are too high. Need to raise everything 10%.
There is a reason for west tamu, tarelton, kingsville, tamu-cc, tam commerce

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Texas A&M unveils plans for 3,400-bed off-campus dorm

Is building giant dorms off campus good for the student experience?

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The distinction between off campus and a block away from campus might be considered nuance.

But why not build it on the main campus? It's 1.5 - 2 miles from the on-campus dorms and where freshmen and sophomores would be taking most of their classes. As spread out as they're building everything, it's becoming less of a walkable campus.

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Hard to tell if Sharp wanted this mainly to oversee the Kyle field redevelopment (as his face is plastered at every pc when it should've been the campus pres or AD)

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This. Shook my head when Sharp was running a PC to discuss the change in sod at Kyle Field last year. I hope the next guy will stay in his lane and allow Univ Pres and AD to lead.

Does President Young read TexAgs?

Capping Texas A&M Enrollment Discussed By The Board of Regents

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Does President Young read TexAgs?

Capping Texas A&M Enrollment Discussed By The Board of Regents

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The Zoo M.O., b*tch about something long enough and the problem gets taken care of.

President Young does not like this post.

As a PSA, I would remind posters that you can vote down posts that add nothing to a thread or discussion.

Good point. I wonder what Young's txags handle is.

I really hope we get this fixed. I plan to donate money to Texas A&M in the next 12 months but don't want it to be squandered trying to fit 80k kids into our flagship university.


I want to be an elite academic university!

Community colleges exist for a reason.....

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Good point. I wonder what Young's txags handle is.

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notthepresident15.

How to fix:

Stop admitting women. The place went to hell when they let the girls in. Now look at it!

Send all of the women to Tarleton and bus the good lookin' ones who have dates into College Station for the games.

Problem solved.

I'm running for the BOR.

I hope Young is able to cap main campus enrollment and boost some of our satellite campuses to compete for tier 1 status. Let's turn the A&M SYSTEM into a national competitor.

Posts with the sort of perjoratives you employ are removed.

Moderation is one of the strengths of the tags products.

Sharp and Perry aren't posting on this thread. Your pejoratives, in addition to being particularly sophomoric, are directed at other posters on this thread who aren't public figures.

Texas A&M has surpassed Arizona State in enrollment. We've passed the point of needing to cap enrollment, we need to decrease enrollment.

As mentioned on the other thread, that graphic does not state comparable information. Arizona State has enrollment of 82,000 of which about 13,000 are online. That would put them +/- at 69,000. The 55,000 number stated in the graphic likely limited to one of their multiple campus nodes.

If you would like the actual data, have at it: https://accountability.tamu.edu/content/university-metrics



In my own view, which is supported by anecdotal experience over the past three years dealing with the TAMU admissions office, the overall quality of the candidate pool has increased which has partly resulted in an increase in the admittance figure. With our increase in visibility since the SEC move we've also seen an uptick in the percentage of those admitted accepting, to the point that the historic metrics applied to admissions were basically invalid for 2013 and 2014 (it has internally been dubbed the JFF-effect).

The trick is going to be reassessing our admissions policy in tandem with a growing state population and increased national visibility. I'm typically in agreement that admissions needs to be capped but there's the very real effect of that on our institutional culture...it basically encourages the elitism that we've held disdain for the life of the university. My take is that there's a happy zone around 50,000-55,000 that exists at the intersection of improving our academic profile and preserving our culture.

How about beginning the capping at 50,000 students.

What Cecil said. Your're kidding yourself if you don't think Aggies are elitists. Every time we claim to have the best student section, traditions, or stadium - that's elitism.

Every time Tech is referred to as Tard or UH is referred to as Cougar High - that's elitism.

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In my own view, which is supported by anecdotal experience over the past three years dealing with the TAMU admissions office, the overall quality of the candidate pool has increased which has partly resulted in an increase in the admittance figure. With our increase in visibility since the SEC move we've also seen an uptick in the percentage of those admitted accepting, to the point that the historic metrics applied to admissions were basically invalid for 2013 and 2014 (it has internally been dubbed the JFF-effect).

The trick is going to be reassessing our admissions policy in tandem with a growing state population and increased national visibility. I'm typically in agreement that admissions needs to be capped but there's the very real effect of that on our institutional culture...it basically encourages the elitism that we've held disdain for the life of the university. My take is that there's a happy zone around 50,000-55,000 that exists at the intersection of improving our academic profile and preserving our culture.

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The quality of the candidate pool for everyone has improved. Not everyone else is increasing their admissions like we are. The result is that while our average incoming freshman is getting better, it's not improving as much or as fast as schools like Texas, SMU, and Baylor where they are getting more selective.

The fact that our rankings are slipping or that we are losing ground to schools like Baylor is not the problem... it is a symptom of the unchecked growth which is the real problem.

Step one in the process is to decide whether or not it is a problem to continue to grow at this without a plan to taper off or cap enrollment. A&M's leadership and the state legislature apparently doesn't even think it is a problem right now, unfortunately.

Sorry cecil, disagree here. I'm not speaking to academic or athletic elitism, but class. White versus blue collar. Rah-rahing for the school or talking smack is entirely different than holding contempt for people you think are intrinsically your inferior.

There's been a couple of shifts in the university culture towards more professional and cosmopolitan careers no doubt but by and large we've produced a workforce that holds no disdain to blue collar workers. A large swath of our cultural identity as a university is centered around the idea of being servant leaders - folks who are ideal in the workforce because we are known for doing jobs that other matriculates with northeastern or left coast degrees would consider beneath themselves. I've experienced those folks in my business in New York and have peers that have to deal with that type of person daily up there.

I'm generalizing here, but the mindset that it's OK to have calloused hands is not encouraged when we're actively winnowing down the number of kids who can get in to the absolute cream of the crop. It's a different demographic you're targeting at that point.

I do not want to see TAMU-College Station morph into a coastal institution that prizes academic metrics over 'the other education' that produces graduates that are more rounded. There's a constant tug-of-war for time commitments between academics, personal pursuits and private life and in that zero-sum game if academics is made more demanding of time then I'm inclined to believe it will be the cultural identity of the university that loses out.

That's not to say that I don't want to elevate the academic profile of the university or to take students that aren't qualified. We've been on a bad trajectory over the last two to three years and it needs to be addressed and reversed, no question.

But there is a world of difference between the top public and top private universities and the grading metrics favor the private schools. We're a Top 25 public school now. I'd like to see us move into the Top 15 or possibly Top 10 of public schools - I fully think that's possible without seriously affecting the university attitude on academic vs. personal priorities. But even the No. 1 public school is only No. 20 overall and the distribution thereafter is nearly 2:1 private versus public schools.

Basically the takeaway is yes, push reforms that improve our national grading but ensure they're balanced reforms that don't undercut what's already here. Going to 35,000-40,000 total enrollment is nothing I want to see happen, it makes no sense to tear out 1/3 of the school when facilities and infrastructure are expanding dramatically. Cap it around 50-55,000 and bring the facilities under construction online, raise tuition a little and improve the student-faculty ratios. That preserves the gains we've had in facilities and economic power while improving the metrics used by the national grading houses.

We're always going to lose point because of size - we're also subject to a massive state population and a constitutionally-protected permanent endowment we don't want to breech to bring on additional state flagship schools. We're not exactly comparable to very many universities out there.

Show me where there's unchecked growth. I see percentages in-line with historical norms that are only becoming alarming because the principal figure has quietly grown over time and is now bumping against the logic of the historical admittance formulas.

This isn't lost on our leadership nor the state legislature - but you do have to account for the ideology of the citizens of this state and the elected leadership and how that's coming to a head with what we're talking about in this thread.

We've elected people to power with the demands to not raise taxes and keep tuition low. In the face of an expanding population and a depressed economy where state funding nationwide is being slashed how exactly are the public universities supposed to argue that their part of the pie should not be cut but that they don't want to take on any additional students? We're turning down candidates left and right that would have been over qualified just a few years back - my own blood in fact. How's that defensible to a results-driven conservative congress when budget time come around?

The basic concept I agree with is dedicating additional funding - ostensibly through increased state taxes - to the lower schools in the A&M and tu systems and have them take the brunt of the expanding population. It's going to take a political change across this state to get that through in my opinion. This isn't a problem unique to A&M.

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Show me where there's unchecked growth. I see percentages in-line with historical norms that are only becoming alarming because the principal figure has quietly grown over time and is now bumping against the logic of the historical admittance formulas.

This isn't lost on our leadership nor the state legislature - but you do have to account for the ideology of the citizens of this state and the elected leadership and how that's coming to a head with what we're talking about in this thread.

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I say unchecked growth because as you've said, we are continuing admitting people at historical levels even though that would mean having a freshman class of about 16,000 in ten years. I haven't seen anything from the legislature or A&M leadership that even acknowledges that this is a problem.

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We've elected people to power with the demands to not raise taxes and keep tuition low. In the face of an expanding population and a depressed economy where state funding nationwide is being slashed how exactly are the public universities supposed to argue that their part of the pie should not be cut but that they don't want to take on any additional students? We're turning down candidates left and right that would have been over qualified just a few years back - my own blood in fact. How's that defensible to a results-driven conservative congress when budget time come around?

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Seems like this math is backwards. We are cutting funding and trying to keep tuition low, so the answer is to enroll MORE students? The only way this works is if you do things that are going to make the quality of education that A&M is providing WORSE. Higher student/faculty ratios, spend fewer dollars per students on services and infrastructure, etc.

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The basic concept I agree with is dedicating additional funding - ostensibly through increased state taxes - to the lower schools in the A&M and tu systems and have them take the brunt of the expanding population. It's going to take a political change across this state to get that through in my opinion. This isn't a problem unique to A&M.

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I don't understand why it's okay for Austin to have a pretty flat student population, but it is going to take some huge political revolution to get anyone on board with the notion that A&M having 65,000 undergrads in ten years is a bad idea.

1. Agreed, they haven't responded although it appears they're starting to. To be fair it's only been something that's even been a concern for the last 2-4 years. There's only just now enough data to indicate a trend that might need to be addressed versus an outlier year. We've also been burning through presidents pretty damn fast...hard to have consistency when we've had more university presidents than football coaches the last decade.

2. Agreed, the math is messed up and it's in part what has led to this point. But it was the way that we tried to not lay off even more of our faculty...We shifted the funding for professors and capital projects onto the students and off the tax payers and brought in graduate assistants for "breakout sessions." That was the lesser poison to staff reductions in force when the budget was twice slashed by a quarter and the political winds basically forbade tuition increases. People moan about rising tuition costs but honestly we're a great bargain and could afford to increase if it solves part of our problem.

3. Nowhere do I say it's OK for Austin to have a static student body or what it will take to stress that massively inflated enrollments at both schools is bad. My statement was meant to say that I like the idea that has been floated previously: to protect the academic standing of the flagships we need to bring up more Tier I schools and insulate the existing flagships from the population swell. To do that I'm saying raise taxes to the point where we can as a state support more schools - that will take broad political movement...it doesn't opine on one school or the other. I will say that if they're allowed to decrease the number of students they take then they damn well better receive less of the pie when the legislature parses out the budget.

Wasn't saying that you specifically think it's okay for Austin to keep their enrollment the same... just that the political precedent has been set. Obviously the state of Texas is okay with topping out enrollment at a flagship because it has been done.

From 2015 Higher Ed Coordinating Board Almanac:

UT Austin
Total Enrollment: 51,312 (2014: 52,059)
Test score range:
SAT Math 590710 (2014: 580-710)
SAT Reading 550670 (unchanged from 2014)
ACT Math 2533 (2014: 26-32)
ACT English 2632 (2014: 24-32)
Acceptance rate: 45.3% (2014: 45.6%)

TAMU - College Station
Total Enrollment: 56,057 (2014: 53,219)
Test score range:
SAT Math 550660 (2014: 560-670)
SAT Reading 520630 (2014: 520640)
ACT Math 2229 (2014: 2430)
ACT English 2429 (2014: 2330)
Acceptance rate: 70.9% (2014: 69.0%)

UT Dallas
Total Enrollment: 23,095
Test score range:
SAT Math 600700
SAT Reading 550670
ACT Math 2432
ACT English 2632
Acceptance rate: 76.9%

So why is A&M increasing enrollment?? So UT-Dallas can take its place as the #2 pubic university in Texas?

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I will say that if they're allowed to decrease the number of students they take then they damn well better receive less of the pie when the legislature parses out the budget.

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They won't. Look at the state appropriations for public universities. UT-Austin gets significantly more per student than A&M. They got significantly more in total dollars than A&M in the last session despite having fewer students.

Elitism: This is a good discussion and intelligent folks can disagree, as you and I do here.

Honestly, your response reinforces my contention (at least to me). You seem to be ascribing a monolithic attitude (which you believe to be undesirable) to an entire group of people and schools, i.e. East coast elite universities. How is THAT not "elitism"? You clearly feel we are, at least in some sense, "better" than they are, and isn't that the very crux of elitism?

I've heard this sort of comment about A&M a lot. The "blue collar" and "callused hands" stuff. For one, us becoming academically elite and as a result getting a bit smaller (from gargantuan to merely huge) has nothing to do with the attitudes you mention. Secondly, I've got some experience with those schools and if anything have found at least as much of an egalitarian attitude as I do amongst Aggies.