During a press conference and subsequent sit-down interview with The Battalion to mark the upcoming one-year anniversary of his permanent appointment, Texas A&M President Mark A. Welsh III discussed topics ranging from Gov. Greg Abbott’s tuition freeze and the university’s capacity study to the closure of Texas A&M University at Qatar.
Here are six takeaways from his comments.
ABBOTT’S TUITION FREEZE
Gov. Greg Abbott extended his two-year tuition freeze that began in 2022. The move, however, could limit university budgets and “slow things down a bit,” Welsh said.
“It will affect what we can provide,” Welsh said. “It’ll affect how quickly we can adjust some of these things our capacity says we need to change. But it won’t keep us from getting it done. It certainly could delay it a little bit.”
In 2022, Texas universities struck a deal with the legislature that led to the current tuition freeze in exchange for an additional $700 million in funding. Welsh told The Texas Tribune that the current freeze is contributing to A&M’s inability to hire faculty in the growing science and engineering departments, which has led to an increase in class sizes. Roughly 35% of the university’s revenue comes from tuition, the Tribune reported.
“We just have to very clearly show that picture to the legislature,” Welsh said. “We have to make sure that we are as efficient as we can be in the way we’re spending all the funding we have available on campus now, so we prioritize the right things and do our part to meet the intent of his executive order.”
Welsh has received a request from Chancellor John Sharp and Bill Mahomes, the chairman of the Board of Regents, to discuss the executive order and to pursue methods of providing “as much relief as we can for Texas residents who come here to A&M.”
SEARCH FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR STUDENT AFFAIRS
The university will conduct a nationwide search to replace Vice President for Student Affairs Joe Ramirez, the outgoing administrator and former Corps of Cadets commandant who announced his retirement in October.
A search committee has been formed already, and the search itself will begin either early to mid December or after the holidays, Welsh said.
“The intent would be to have somebody in place before the next academic year begins in the fall at the very latest,” Welsh said. “I don’t think there’ll be a major change in the position itself or the role it plays. It’s a fundamentally important position at our university.”
The goal is to find someone to “embrace this challenge,” he said. The Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs supports 12 departments in the Division of Student Affairs through several means, including strategic planning, budgeting, community development, research and public relations.
“Joe Ramirez, by the way, has been exceptional in this role,” Welsh said. “Not good — he’s been exceptional. He is present. He is engaged. He is confident. He is never afraid to take charge. I owe him a ton of thanks, and I give him a ton of respect. We’re going to miss him.”
Ramirez officially steps down on Jan. 1, 2025.
A&M AT QATAR
The closure of A&M at Qatar, or TAMUQ, is continuing on pace. Welsh said he visited a few weeks prior to the November interview with The Battalion to “check in with everybody and see how things were going.”
“There were a number of frustrations they had that I think were because we were making some assumptions that probably weren’t completely accurate,” Welsh said. “I think we’ve corrected all those. There were concerns about budget, for example, and whether they would be fully supported in their budget needs through the teach out of all the students there, and I think we’ve put that to rest.”
Welsh said the general guideline for the transition has been to ensure every student has the same experience the first student did, including student research or travel opportunities, so they “reinstated all that.” The Qatar Foundation, the state non-profit organization that leads education initiatives in the area TAMUQ is located, will support other budgetary concerns, Welsh said, and A&M will support whatever the foundation can’t.
“They also had a number of individual faculty and staff transitions that they had not finalized yet because they were worried about budget,” Welsh said. “I said, ‘Don’t worry about that. You decide how many faculty you need to give students the same experience that the other students had in the past all the way through the final day of operations at TAMUQ, and we will fund it. Somebody’s going to fund it.’”
A large number of faculty have transitioned from TAMUQ to Hamad Bin Khalifa University, a large engineering university in the region that has partnered with A&M to accept faculty, Welsh said.
“Other faculty have left to go look for jobs [in] other places, but most of the people are accounted for,” Welsh said. “And now we have to make sure that every staff member who remains has a plan [and] knows that they’re going to be paid through 2028, which is when the last part of this transition occurs.”
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS’S NEW PLAN
A&M has no plans to follow the University of Texas’s plan of giving free tuition to families making under $100,000 annually, Welsh said.
“The thing we have to keep in mind occasionally here is that we’re actually pretty cheap,” Welsh said. “ … We want to continue that. We want to make sure we’re doing our part to keep costs as low as we can by being as efficient as possible — but providing what Texans want.”
He noted that A&M is routinely on lists of most affordable colleges nationwide and hosts thousands of faculty that prepare students for successful careers. The Wall Street Journal article that ranked A&M as the No. 1 university in the state focused on student and graduate outcomes, hiring rates and salaries — things that matter to Aggies, Welsh said.
“Those are the kind of things we should protect here on behalf of Texas high school graduates who are going to come here every year and make sure that we don’t lose those things,” Welsh said. “It costs money to do that, but it shouldn’t cost an exorbitant amount of money. That’s the balancing act we’re trying to pull off.”
STUDENT CAPACITY STUDY, STUDENT EXPERIENCE STUDY
More than a year after Welsh’s State of the University, Welsh is set to reveal the final results of two surveys — the student capacity study and associated student experience study — in the coming weeks, pushing the university in a new direction that’s set to shape it in the years to come.
The separate studies look at potential ways of managing university growth and student experiences with various elements of campus, largely related to growth. The reports, released in August, proposed solutions now under consideration by Welsh.
“These are big decisions for the university,” Welsh said. “They’re decisions like, should we stop undergraduate growth for a few years to give ourselves time to rightsize some of the functions inside the university and some of the infrastructure inside the university that actually affects that student experience in a dramatic way or affects our ability to provide them the kind of education they want.”
By early December, the president is set to reach his early conclusions, and he’ll then begin discussing the recommendations with various on-campus stakeholders to work out the best solutions to adopt.
Various proposals include limiting student enrollment, building more dormitories and dining halls and constructing an “Aggie Loop” under West Campus headed by Elon Musk’s The Boring Company. The surveys began last year after Welsh heard student, staff and faculty feedback that A&M had become too large.
“It’s really important to figure out where we now head as an institution,” Welsh said.
ADMINISTRATORS SEE BRIGHT FUTURE FOR A&M
Ultimately, A&M is in a good spot — especially compared to last year, Welsh said.
“I want A&M to be in the national conversation more frequently and more routinely than in the past, and I want it to be for things that we should be incredibly proud of,” Welsh said. “We’ve been working very hard at this, and we’re going to succeed with it because there are things here we are incredibly proud of.”
The president said A&M’s faculty, research and achievements are impressive. That’s not to mention students who “are going to change the world,” he said.
“They already have,” Welsh said. “Still No. 1 in public schools for Fortune 500 CEOs. That’s something most Americans don’t know. Let’s tell them, loudly. We shouldn’t be subtle about the great things that this university produces, and so in 2025, that’s our focus.”
