Texas Could Soon Overtake Harvard as Wealthiest University in the U.S.
According to a report from Bloomberg, the University of Texas is on track to overtake the prestigious Ivy League institution of Harvard as the wealthiest university in the United States.
Thanks to an incredible amount of oil-rich land, the University of Texas is heading towards record revenues in 2022. Check out this incredible stat from Bloomberg’s report regarding Texas’s use of oil money to maintain profits in a world going away from fossil fuels.
“Every day, the University of Texas System makes about $6 million off a mineral-rich swath of land it manages in the US’s largest oil field Crude and natural gas, not fundraising or investing prowess, have positioned the school’s endowment to overtake Harvard University’s as the richest in US higher education.
“The University of Texas oversees 2.1 million acres—almost the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined—in the Permian Basin. While other universities are shedding their fossil fuel holdings in the name of eco-consciousness, the Texas college system is leasing its land to drillers including ConocoPhillips, Continental Resources, Inc. and nearly 250 other operators.
“Land operated by the University of Texas System is on track to post its best-ever annual revenue in fiscal 2022 because of soaring oil prices and production on its property in the Permian Basin. Oil reached a high of $120 a barrel earlier this year as a result of a war-induced energy crunch. The revenue is expected to help narrow the gap between the Texas system’s $42.9 billion endowment and Harvard’s $53.2 billion as of June 2021.“
With the vast majority of universities around the U.S. crunching the numbers to stay in the black, Texas is pooling money from the vast amounts of natural resources that are held within the land that it manages. Because of this, the university and its athletic department continues to thrive, financially speaking.
Texas’ athletic department sits atop the country at an estimated $147 million in average revenue over a three-year span, according to a report from 247Sports’ Brad Crawford last December. Simply put, there is a lot of money flowing into UT right now.
