Research, Education, And Corporate Profits: Who Truly Benefits In Texas?
How public institutions fund corporate success at the expense of Texans.
Note: I know everyone’s eyes are on the chaos unfolding in DC, but let’s not get distracted. Here in Texas, Republicans are pressing full steam ahead with their agenda.
On Thursday, which would have been Day 23 of the Texas Legislature, the Senate Committee on Finance continued its budget hearings with the public universities throughout the state. It was a ten-hour day, and the testimony was dry. Still, it revealed a troubling truth. Texas’ public universities are caught in a cycle where taxpayer-funded research and education fuel corporate profits while critical needs like healthcare access and equitable education remain unmet.
Universities like UT Southwest and UT Health testified about groundbreaking research in gene therapy, cell therapy, and AI-driven healthcare. Despite this, these discoveries are being commercialized by private pharmaceutical and biotech companies, with no financial benefit returning to the public institutions or taxpayers who funded the research.
The testimonies (YouTube):
With breakthrough treatments priced out of reach, the most vulnerable are locked out of life-saving care. While corporations cash in on publicly funded research, universities are left scrambling for state funding, unable to tackle critical issues like behavioral health because there’s no profit to be made.
In one stunning moment during the hearings, Senator Lois Kolkhorst (R-SD18), who has a long record of opposing Medicaid expansion and increasing healthcare access, engaged in a striking exchange with UT Health. Kolkhorst acknowledged the grim reality of how healthcare is structured in Texas: cancer care and surgical interventions are prioritized because they generate massive profits, while mental health, despite rising suicide rates and a glaring lack of providers, remains neglected due to its low financial returns.
A recent study indicates that suicide rates are higher in some rural counties compared to urban ones, underscoring the critical need for accessible education and services in these areas.
As of 2023, the federal government had wholly or partially designated 98% of Texas’ 254 counties as areas of mental health professional shortage.
This grotesque system deepens healthcare inequality and hijacks the mission of public research institutions, turning them into little more than R&D factories for corporate profiteers. The public pays the price twice.
The struggles of working-class colleges in Southeast Texas.
The testimonies from Lamar State College Port Arthur and Lamar State College-Orange showed how Texas’ public colleges serve working-class, first-generation students. Despite being economic development and workforce training engines, these institutions are chronically underfunded and struggle to maintain outdated infrastructure, meet growing demand, and recruit qualified instructors.
Lamar State College-Port Arthur requested $13 million to renovate a 57-year-old instructional building and modernize their technical programs. Similarly, Lamar State College-Orange faces an uphill battle to keep up with the needs of Southeast Texas’ booming industrial economy. President Tom Johnson highlighted the school’s efforts to train workers in plumbing, welding, HVAC, and carpentry, which are essential to sustaining the Gulf Coast’s industrial expansion. Yet, without $10 million to expand facilities in rural areas like Lumberton and Livingston, the college struggles to offer accessible education to many communities in dire need of vocational training.
The testimonies:
There is a critical shortage of instructors with trade expertise due to low wages and competition with higher-paying jobs in the private sector.
One takeaway from this hearing is that Texas’ disinvestment in public colleges hinders access to the training programs that Texas industries rely on to stay competitive.
Without adequate state support, institutions are left in a cycle where they are expected to fuel economic growth without the resources to do so effectively.
Since 2000, tuition at Texas public universities has risen by approximately 147%. This increase has significantly outpaced inflation and wage growth, placing a substantial financial burden on students.
West Texas faces a growing crisis and a severe shortage of healthcare professionals.
Despite ongoing efforts to recruit and train local providers, corporate healthcare systems prioritizing urban centers with higher profit margins are abandoning these areas. Texas Tech Health Center in El Paso testified that public universities are pivotal to training and retaining healthcare workers in underserved regions. Programs at Texas Tech have made strides, but they are hamstrung by insufficient state funding and a lack of incentives to keep healthcare professionals in rural areas.
The testimonies :
Physicians, nurses, and mental health professionals are being lured away by corporate hospitals in cities offering significantly higher wages, leaving rural communities without access to quality care. Rural hospitals are closing without enough doctors and nurses, and healthcare deserts are expanding.
Rural hospitals face a shortage of mental health care providers, with over 60% of rural counties designated as provider shortage areas.”
Testimonies from Sam Houston State University and the University of North Texas highlighted the escalating crisis in tuition affordability.
Both institutions face growing enrollment but struggle to maintain low tuition due to declining state funding. This has forced universities to shift the financial burden onto students, disproportionately impacting low-income and first-generation students.
The root cause of these challenges lies in decades of state disinvestment. Universities are left increasingly reliant on tuition, corporate partnerships, and private funding, undermining their public mission to provide accessible education.
Students from underprivileged backgrounds are saddled with more debt, while wealthier students (often from well-funded school districts) gain easier access to higher education and resources.
The testimonies:
This inequitable system directly results from corporate-driven policies prioritizing profit over education. Public universities are no longer fully funded by public dollars but are being pushed toward a privatized model where only those who can afford it thrive.
The testimony from Texas universities laid bare a system rigged to benefit corporate giants at the expense of public health and education.
The testimonies on Thursday exposed a system rigged to benefit corporate giants at the expense of public health and education. Publicly funded research institutions develop cutting-edge medical breakthroughs, vocational colleges train the workforce for essential industries, and universities educate the next generation of professionals, all while private corporations profit from their work without reinvesting in the institutions that made it possible.
Corporations, in theory, are supposed to reinvest in the public good through taxes. However, the math doesn’t add up in Texas, where there is no state income tax and a heavily corporate-friendly tax structure. Major industries benefit from educated workers provided by public institutions, yet their contributions through property and business taxes fall short of adequately funding these services. This creates a cycle where the state underfunds universities and healthcare programs, pushing the burden onto students, working-class taxpayers, and communities struggling with resources.
Some other testimonies (if you’re looking for your alma matter):
In a rare moment of clarity, Senator Kolkhorst appeared close to grasping this system’s inherent contradictions.
“We spend more than any other nation on healthcare and yet rank abysmally low,” Kolkhorst noted as if she was on the verge of realizing that healthcare driven by corporate profits is morally corrupt and economically disastrous. Yet, instead of advocating for systemic change, she fell back into vague promises to “work on it” through legislation that rarely disrupts corporate interests.
This cozy relationship between lawmakers and corporations isn’t accidental. Lobbyists from pharmaceutical companies, private healthcare providers, and industry groups exert immense influence on public policy, ensuring that reforms protecting public goods are diluted or blocked altogether.
If Texas is to break free from this cycle of exploitation, voting out greed-driven Republicans is the only way. Public resources belong to the people, not the corporations that exploit them.
The rest of the testimony:
We’ve completed two weeks of hearings on the state budget, and they continue to expose our Republican-led government’s true priorities.
During week three (the final week of the budget), we will undoubtedly continue to see public institutions meant to serve the people being gutted to feed corporate profits. Universities are expected to perform miracles with inadequate funding, only to have the benefits privatized by corporations that give little in return. Meanwhile, rural communities lack doctors, mental health services go underfunded, and tuition hikes burden students with lifelong debt.
At the core of this system is a political apparatus beholden to corporate interests. Lobbyists influence policy to maintain tax breaks and ensure that industries profit from taxpayer-funded research and training. Legislators like Senator Kolkhorst occasionally seem on the brink of admitting the system’s failure but rarely push for the structural reforms needed to dismantle this cycle of exploitation.
If Texas wants a future where education and healthcare are accessible to all, the state must prioritize the public good over corporate greed. That means demanding transparency in corporate partnerships, capping tuition, reinvesting in healthcare infrastructure, and holding lawmakers accountable. Until then, Texans will continue to foot the bill while corporations reap the rewards.
Corporate greed won’t stop until we demand a government that works for us.
March 14: The last day Legislators can file bills.
June 2: The 89th Legislative Session ends.
Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.
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i wouldn't call this reporting...its more like reminding us of the ongoing cruelty and stupidity of the Austin gang.
One of their alumni, Craig Goldman graduated to Congress where his Jewishness doesn't' seem to cause him much concern in hanging with the national anti-semites, Proving Bibi isn't the only soulless Jew.
I am afraid even been the best at being worst in HC and education and doesn't motivate them to do good by Texans.
come to think of it, being undereducated has helped them turn Hispanic heads who just voted to cut their own throats...so maybe there is some logic to it.
Same for Christians and Catholics whose stupidity was revealed the 2nd week of the Trump rampage.....goodbye Catholic Relief Services, goodbye Samaritans Purse