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Originally Posted by pj3000
Texas... always going for rankings. I assume you are referring to us news & world report undergraduate rankings? Texas universities should just focus on building strong programs to attract a national and international student body... and the rankings they covet so dearly will follow. Texas has many fine schools, but a school like UTSA has a very long road ahead to be ranked highly (is it even ranked as a national university to begin with? I don't think so.).
Also, how are you quantifying "Tier 1", anyway? Ranked in top 50? If so, Texas A&M doesn't make the list. Texas has 2 top tier universities in UT-Austin and Rice University.
Texas is still a relatively new state when it comes to higher education, so it shouldn't be expected to have many long-established, nationally-prominent universities. But it does have a huge population and a lot of $, so one would expect the number of top tier schools to be higher. Still, though larger and older than Florida, Florida still has the same number of top tier universities (University of Florida and University of Miami) as Texas does.
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Are UF and U of M really of the same caliber as Rice and UT?
While I am not a UT booster, I recognize they are a great school. I believe better than any school, public or private, in Florida. In addition, to compare Rice to one of them is borderline insanity. In defense of Texas A & M, it is a tier 1 university.
Texas has many excellent universities that do not focus as much on research. Trinity, TCU, Southwestern, U of Dallas, and SMU are a few. You should not assume attending a research university provides you with a better education than a good Masters or Liberal Arts University. It just is not true in many cases.