Despite challenges with federal grants, UNT remains on target to gather $5 million in private donations.
The University of North Texas (UNT) is gearing up for the completion of a 90-day fundraising campaign, aiming to reach a monetary goal of $5 million. UNT President Harrison Keller shared this update with the Board of Regents earlier this month, revealing that the campaign had already secured $4.2 million.
With just under a million dollars left to raise, key players are nearing the finish line. The collected funds will help UNT become eligible for a grant from the newly established Texas University Fund (TUF). The campaign concludes on August 31.
The TUF, which was renamed from the University Research Fund in 2023, is a permanent endowment of $3.9 billion that benefits four university systems: the University of Houston, Texas State University, Texas Tech University, and the UNT System. These systems were previously ineligible for funding from the Permanent University Fund, which was established in 1876 benefiting from West Texas oil and gas reserves.
The TUF is intended to allocate state funds to public university systems investing significantly in research. Being a Carnegie Tier I Research Institution, UNT shares this status with the University of Houston and Texas Tech University.
In addition to the TUF, Texans also approved the creation of the National Research Support Fund. This fund will invest dollars in programs at the University of Texas at Arlington, UT Dallas, UT El Paso, and UT San Antonio. The amendment requires the Legislature to approve funding for the support fund every two years.
Keller stated that both the House and Senate had earmarked $1.3 billion for additional investments in the TUF corpus. If deployed, this would be enough to grant eligibility to the Texas State University System and UNT System into the first level of the TUF.
Nevertheless, university systems eligible for TUF funding are required to invest some funds of their own. Keller noted that UNT must surpass $50 million in private and federal-sponsored research. This aggressive research target is essential for UNT to maintain eligibility for additional TUF funding and avoid inflated benchmarks in subsequent years.
This year, UNT has been affected by turbulence in the federal grant system, losing roughly $6.5 million across 30 to 31 federal grants. Federal grants have been crucial to funding research projects across the university's colleges, and losing these grants can potentially reduce or eliminate research projects.
To offset the decline in federal funds, UNT has launched a campaign to raise private funds, having already exceeded its original fundraising goal. "Securing these funds is critical for us," Keller said, as failure to meet the TUF performance targets could restart the clock towards eligibility, increasing the benchmark for future years. Moreover, UNT has also set a target of identifying at least $5 million in additional private funds beyond the new private dollars raised during the campaign, bringing the current total to $5.5 million, thanks to the partnership of the UNT Foundation and the donor community.
- The University of North Texas (UNT) is actively seeking to raise an additional $900,000 in private funds by August 31 to become eligible for a grant from the Texas University Fund (TUF).
- UNT, as a Carnegie Tier I Research Institution, aims to surpass $50 million in private and federal-sponsored research, not only to maintain eligibility for TUF funding but also to avoid inflated benchmarks in future years, contributing to education-and-self-development and finance.
