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| Travel Expenses 2013 (University of Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech) |
With the school year still unfinished the University of
Texas at Austin has already broken last year’s spending levels for travel. In
comparison to the state’s other top public schools, UT allocates the most money
towards these expenses.
With four months left until the fiscal year ends for public
institutions, the University of Texas’s has already spent $880,000 of Texas’s
taxpayers’ money for traveling -- $35,000 more than the 2012 numbers show.
Other top universities in the state, like Texas A&M in College Station and
Texas Tech University of Lubbock, have reported travel expenses less than
one-sixth of UT’s.
UT’s official website has outlined the guidelines for
state-funded travel. The site explains that the university will cover the
expenses of current employees, prospective employees, students or independent
contractors’ travel so long that “the purpose of travel must clearly involve
university official business.”
Since Sept. 1, 2012, UT has spent almost $260,000 in meals
and lodging, in-state and out-of-state combined. That amount equates to two
professors and an assistant professor’s salary or six $40,000 scholarships --
about the amount of tuition for four years at the university. In the same time
frame, Texas Tech’s latest reports showed approximately $76,000 of meal and
lodging expenses, and Texas A&M spent just over $40,000.
In international travel, UT spent more than any other public
university in Texas and placed second highest among all of the state’s public
agencies. The only school that came close to UT’s foreign travelling expenses
was the University of North Texas, which spent about half the amount of UT’s
$100,000 expenditures. Texas Tech and Texas A&M reported spending none of
the state’s money, thus far, for international travel.
“[Texas] A&M does not do any foreign travel on state
funded accounts,” said Kyle Metcalf, the financial director of Texas A&M’s
Financial Management Operations. “All of our foreign travel occurs on our
locally funded accounts.”
UT and Texas A&M have ranked among the top schools in
Texas for years, remaining as the only two Tier 1 public universities in Texas
(until last year when the University of Houston made the cut).
A university earns Tier 1 status by meeting a federally set
criteria, including categories like total research expenditures, faculty
awards, and median students’ SAT and ACT test scores. These schools receive
higher amounts from the government for research funding than Tier 2, Tier 3,
and Tier 4 institutions.
In order for a university to remain a Tier 1 ranked school
and receive the highest amount of federal research funding, they must continue
progressing. UT’s spending trend has illustrated their drive to constantly meet
that goal. Since the website has emphasized to students that the institution
will bring international diversity to their educational experiences, the travel
of spending may not see a decrease anytime soon.
