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What is really sad reading the jist of many here is that we are somehow holier than thou and not a land grant college. The purpose of which is to the people of Texas. I like where we are going. We will or have already eclipsed UT as the "university" for Texans.
Texas has plenty of "pretty good" public universities to serve college-aged Texans, such as UofH, Texas Tech, and UT-Dallas. The problem as I see it, as does Chancellor McRaven, is that our two flagship universities are at risk of falling behind Cal, Michigan, Florida, Georgia Tech, Wisconsin, etc. I'm concerned that A&M is content with being a large "pretty good" school.
For all of its faults, I believe California has the tiered college system figured out. The University of California, Berkeley, the top public university in the world, is also a land grant college (as is MIT for that matter). The state wisely gave Californians plenty of college options so that they did not have to leave the state to obtain a "good", "pretty good" or, as A&M must provide, an "excellent" education.