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The University of Texas is launching one of the most ambitious fundraising goals of any public university in the country to amp up the school’s reach.
The “What Starts Here” campaign aims to raise $6 billion for the Austin campus by the end of 2025 — also the largest goal of its kind for any higher education institution in Texas, officials said.
This is one step of many as the school works to reach its goal of “becoming the world’s most impactful public research university,” UT President Jay Hartzell said.
The initiative aims to raise $1 billion for scholarships and programs that help students succeed at the university. Money will also go toward strengthening faculty recruitment and retention by establishing endowed faculty chairs, professorships and fellowships; transforming healthcare in Texas by expanding research and innovation in how care is delivered; and investing in UT strengths, such as computational intelligence, communications and law.
“We take the role of serving the entire state as being critical to us,” Hartzell said. “We really want this campaign to be about, ‘How do we serve the entire state?’”
The university is more than halfway to its goal. More than 240,000 donors contributed throughout the campaign’s quiet phase, which began in 2016. The money raised already exceeds contributions to UT’s past campaigns.
“This campaign will create the resources that enable our students and our faculty to change the world, which is the ambitious vision of this institution,” said Scott Rabenold, UT’s vice president for university development.
UT’s $6 billion goal is tied with that of the University of California at Berkeley, which launched its fundraising campaign in 2020. The California institution has raised more than $5.4 billion to date, its campaign priorities include adding 100 tenure-track faculty positions and providing resources for them to conduct research; establishing 300 new graduate fellowships; and building new facilities.