This study calculates the financial impact on the state when Texans leave high school but fail to learn basic reading, writing, and math. Many of these students simply drop out, but an increasing number of them are students who graduate but still lack basic skills. The financial impact on the state manifests itself in a variety of ways – lower earning potential and poor productivity of workers, increased spending on social programs, direct costs of remediation by institutes of higher education and employers, and personal losses that may affect individuals for a lifetime and the state for generations.
Higher Education
Student-Athletes Are Not Employees
College athletics is approaching a crossroads. After years of rapid, sweeping change in student-athlete compensation practices that have left a patchwork of state regulation in its wake, some in Congress now propose to reclassify collegiate student‑athletes across the country as employees of their universities. While we sympathize with the desire to provide certainty and uniformity to student-athletes and universities, and although we see the need for some revenue-sharing framework, workplace regulation...
May 19, 2026