Meaning

How we benefit society:

Economic Growth
The University of Texas at Austin generates an annual level of Texas business activity of more than $7 billion. Its students provide an annual economic boost of about $850 million into the local economy. Student spending leads local businesses and their employees to spend another $1.5 billion in the Austin area.

Scholars at The University of Texas at Austin annually generate more than $400 million in federal and private research grants and contracts. Through its Austin Technology Incubator, which is internationally recognized for technology commercialization, the university has spun off 65 companies that have generated cumulatively more than $1.2 billion in revenue. The university’s research facilities, including the J.J. Pickle Research Campus, the Marine Science Institute and McDonald Observatory, house more than 90 research units. More than 400 patents have been awarded to the university since its inception.

Social Benefit
The university strengthens the state’s future workforce through initiatives designed to enhance local elementary and secondary education. For more than a century, thousands of teachers, researchers, administrators and students at the university have dedicated their academic careers to improving K-12 education. Every college and school sponsors programs and projects that benefit public schools.

The University of Texas at Austin serves students from all walks of life. For example, the university ranks fifth in the nation in producing undergraduate degrees for minority groups, according to Black Issues in Higher Education magazine. The university ranks eighth nationally among the magazine’s Top 100 producers of undergraduates for both Asian Americans and Hispanics. It annually awards more than 12,000 degrees and offers more than 330 approved degree programs. The university has one of the largest graduate schools in the nation, with more than 11,000 students.

The university’s museums, libraries and research facilities offer some of the world’s greatest collections of artifacts, art, manuscripts, photographs, musical recordings and historical documents. Museum offerings include Latin American, Renaissance and Baroque art, 40 million documents relating to the career of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, 30 million literary manuscripts, five million photographs and five million natural sciences specimens.

Innovation
The University of Texas at Austin has long been a pioneer and leader in establishing innovative educational programs in technology, research partnerships with the private sector and productive basic and applied research to support knowledge-based industries in Texas — important factors in determining the economic future of Austin and Texas.

Through its business school and specially designed centers and institutes, the university helps Texas entrepreneurs with financial and marketing advice, development of business plans, worker training, development and testing of equipment and other services. Leading chip manufacturers have headquartered their chip design centers in Austin. At least 75 percent of the semiconductor industry has a home in Texas, one reason nanotechnology research has thrived at the university. With an environmental faculty ranked among the top five in the United States, the university conducts meaningful research and educates productive graduates seeking to restore and improve the natural world.