Dallas Regional Chamber

Position
The Dallas Regional Chamber strongly advocates passage of Proposition 4 (HJR 14-2) relating to the creation of additional national research universities in Texas. The Chamber encourages our members to provide information to their employees and other associates concerning the impact of the Constitutional Amendment which will be on the ballot on November 3, 2009.

The ballot language is as follows:

“The constitutional amendment establishing the national research university fund to enable emerging research universities in this state to achieve prominence as major research universities and transferring the balance of the higher education fund to the national research university fund.”

Background
The North Texas Region has three universities who could achieve national research status – the University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Texas at Dallas.

1) Texas ships off more than 10,000 high school graduates per year who attend doctoral granting universities in other states, while recruiting only about 4,000 per year from other States to Texas. This brain drain – a net loss of nearly 6,000 highly qualified students per year – is large and increased by 54% in the last 6 years;
2) Texas has 8% of the U.S. population but only receives 5% of Federal research and development (R&D) funding and 5% of the nation’s venture capital investment. If Texas received just its population-based share (8%), that would be $3.7 B more each year; and
3) The dearth of top-tier universities hurts Texas’ largest cities. Dallas-Fort Worth, for example, is the fourth-most populous and fifth-most economically productive city in the U.S., but has no Tier One academic university, ranks 22nd in research expenditures ($700M per year below the average of the 10 largest cities) and 11th in number of college degrees awarded (awarding less than half the average of the 10 largest cities).
Action
The Chamber will provide awareness and information to our members relaying our support Proposition 4 and the positive impact the creation of additional national research universities will have on this region.