OPINION — San Angelo LIVE! had not been reporting local news for a month on October 3, 2013 when then-Texas Senator Robert Duncan touched down in San Angelo in a private jet with then-Gov. Rick Perry. Duncan was here to stump for Proposition 6, a statewide ballot initiative to take a piece of the Rainy Day fund to finance a $2 billion water source development fund.
Not knowing who I was or what San Angelo LIVE! was, Duncan sat down with me at Ranger Aviation and went over the reasons he wanted his constituents to vote in favor of Prop 6.
Duncan was one of the most well spoken politicians I have ever interviewed, and I have interviewed many. He’s a problem-solver, not an ideological firebrand or hothead.
Prop 6 passed and that resulting water infrastructure fund could have financed the City of San Angelo’s reclamation water plant. That’s what the City was aiming for until politics of potty water shut it down. The point is not the controversial nature of the project, but that a very low interest loan source from the State to build very large water projects is available for a city located outside the populated I-35, DFW, and Houston metro areas, as Duncan promised.
Duncan resigned as state senator to assume the role as Chancellor of the Texas Tech University System.
When we learned that Duncan was resigning as chancellor over his push to build a Texas Tech vet school in Amarillo, my thought was that TTUS lost one hell of a leader.
For more on the details, see this story in the Texas Tribune.
As an Aggie, I’m not supposed to support the idea of a TTU vet school. But as a parent paying for college tuition at Texas colleges, I welcome the competition. A&M should not hold the monopoly on vet schools! We need more supply of classrooms. Maybe (not hopeful though), the price of vet degrees will fall with a little public sector competition.
Besides, A&M isn’t rural anymore. The running quip is that A&M’s vet school graduates twice more cat and dog (or “poodle”) doctors for suburban moms in Houston than they produce vets to treat cattle, horses, goats, pigs, sheep, and llamas for Texas ranchers. I don't know if that is true, but having a vet school out here where ranchers remain made sense.
It’s too bad Duncan probably saw that, worked for that end to benefit his charge (the TTUS), and has to resign because Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp threw a hissy fit in front of Gov. Abbott.
Sharp is a Democrat, too. What is Gov. Greg Abbott thinking? He denied any involvement, of course.
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Comments
The problem here is Ethical. A monopoly is a business/university entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge overly high prices. In this case, the students who want to be Vets. A business that limits the number of applicants to their program so that they can charge outrageous tuition prices who in turn those same students in practice, can charge outrageous prices to animal owners. Trickle Down Economics. Competition levels the playing field. More students are able to attend Vet programs. University will bring down their tuition and accept more Vet students. Competition allows for creative ways to teach and allow universities to grow by adding more buildings and professors. New ideas.
Like in Medicine, Doctors will go where there is more money to be made. Incentives is what allows a doctor to select a small town and the love to live in rural areas. As with Nursing, shortage, should not other universities be allow to have programs when the demand is there. This holds true with animals where the demand is great. One can also look at grocery stores where if only name store in town, grocery prices would be sky high.
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PermalinkAdam,
Like the vet school would be, The TTUHSC (originally the TTU School of Medicine) was created to address a critical shortage of healthcare providers in rural West Texas. When the school's creation was being debated in the 1960s, the ratio of doctors to people in West Texas was 1 to 1,366. An ideal ratio is 1 to 300. Today, that ratio has improved to 1 to 719 -- still not where it needs to be, but a gigantic leap from where we were before.
A few facts:
20% of the practicing physicians in West Texas are TTUHSC grads
Each campus places a majority of its graduates within 75 miles of the campus they graduate from
The Family Medicine Accelerated Track (FMAT), the first of its kind anywhere, allows students to complete a doctorate in three years...significantly reducing the expense of their education.
In 2017, School of Medicine students provided 501,319 clinical visits and served 198,047 patients.
Texas Tech's vet school proposal is directly modeled after its medical school that has operated successfully for almost 50 years and drastically improved both access and quality of healthcare in West Texas. This isn't something that some think-tank came up with or a paper written by some academic -- this is a tested and proven model for training and keeping healthcare providers in this region. If A&M is the end-all, be-all when it comes to vets, then Tech has that same distinction when it comes to training rural healthcare providers.
Sure vets (like doctors) can make more in the cities than they can in rural West Texas. But West Texas also offers a lower cost of living and (to some) a higher quality of life than those urban areas. Knocking a year off of school costs is a powerful financial incentive as well. If you train doctors in rural areas, they are likely to practice in rural areas and that has been proven by none other than Texas Tech.
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PermalinkI agree with Mr. Cooper. He has listed good points for a Vet School at Tech.
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