Ivy League Backlash Draws Money, Students to Upstart University in Texas
17th November 2023
It seemed ambitious, verging on grandiose, when journalist Bari Weiss used her Substack newsletter in 2021 to reveal plans for a new university in Austin, Texas.
The project — to address the “gaping chasm between the promise and the reality of higher education” — was backed by prominent people in academia and finance, including the historian Niall Ferguson, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale.
But it was hard to envisage how exactly the University of Austin would get off the ground. There was no leafy campus, a glaring lack of accreditation and, of course, no network of notable alumni to entice new students. The idea of the little upstart being able to compete with Ivy League institutions to enroll the nation’s best and brightest seemed far fetched.
Two years on, UATX, as it’s known, is having a moment.