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Universities Statewide Have Requested Funding for Special Projects

Cybersecurity funding is among the millions of dollars that higher ed would like to receive.

Young lady with projected data across a screen.
Alongside state agencies that advocate, report data, and distribute some funding on behalf of higher education institutions, those universities and health science centers (HSC) individually go through the biennial state budget process.

University systems and HSCs submitted Legislative Appropriations Requests (LARs) that include regularly expected funding but also include exceptional requests, such as one-time IT purchases or longer-term projects. These requests were recently reported by the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), one of the agencies to which all state agency budget planning is submitted.

The 2024-25 Exceptional Items – Initial Agency LAR Submissions lists agencies with biennial appropriations above $40 million.

Among those systems are the University of Texas (UT), University of Houston (UH), University of North Texas (UNT) and a few stand-alone universities that aren’t part of these.

Here are a few requests of note that can be found in the LAR report:

  • Lamar University, technical training center for school partnership, $1.5 million
  • Midwestern State University (MSU), science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) expansion and center for excellence, $2.3 million
  • Steven F. Austin State University (SFA), capital renewal and modernization, $12.7 million
  • Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (HSC), telehealth institute, $13.5 million
  • UH System Administration, medical research facility, $26.1 million
  • UH Downtown, public safety and emergency operations center, $3.4 million
  • UNT Health Science Center, digital health and therapeutics, $10 million
  • UT Austin, Texas hub for applied cybersecurity, $25.5 million
  • UT El Paso, U.S. Census research data center, $500,000
  • UT Permian Basin, West Texas cybersecurity institute, $905,000
  • UT HSC Houston, Texas all payers claims database, $14 million

Community colleges would benefit from the $58.7 million cybersecurity request made by the Texas Association of Community Colleges (TACC), previously the Texas Public Community/Junior College Association. Its “focus is facilitating communication between participating colleges and institutions, lobbying for favorable legislation,” according to the website.
Rae D. DeShong is a Dallas-based staff writer and has written for The Dallas Morning News and worked as a community college administrator.