Brainiest and least brainy cities

[Red Arrow]

My wife and I did our part to help Tulsa on the list.  We both have bachelor's and master's degrees.   

But are you making as much income as if you lived in a place like New York City, Boston, LA......?

[SXSW]

But are you making as much income as if you lived in a place like New York City, Boston, LA......?

No but we are also not spending more than 3/4 of our income on housing/expenses.  When I lived in Denver I made about the same as I make here in Tulsa but expenses were way higher.  I made the same living in Oklahoma City but my wife makes more here than there, hence why we moved (and because Tulsa is nicer).

[waterboy]

So there shouldn't be a relationship between brainy, income and education because some people are naturally smart, some educated people are dense and...that trumps a study based on education and how it can result in higher incomes? Mssr.s Guido, Gas et al have disagreed with that assessment for quite some time.

Sorry, Red, I think your analysis is shaky. The study seemed to show where concentrations of education and therefore income seem to be prevalent. It didn't seem at all political to me. What is obvious from this study and others is that people around here are more interested in the source of a study when it conflicts with their views, and continue to believe that somehow Tulsa is just different. We're not. We need more educated youth staying in this area to keep the ideas churning. We're a bit stagnated both income and education wise here.

But, the cost of living is low.

[Red Arrow]

I didn't say there should be no correlation, just that it needed some more adjustments.

[SXSW]

We need more educated youth staying in this area to keep the ideas churning. We're a bit stagnated both income and education wise here.

Yes we do.  We have plenty of youth, the key is retaining the educated ones.  That brings me back to my initial post about OSU and TU.

[spartanokc]

I blame OSU.  They have the potential to make the Tulsa campus their main center for health sciences, graduate studies and research but keep dragging their heels.  OU meanwhile has built an impressive medical complex in Oklahoma City, a huge research park in Norman, and its smaller Tulsa campus has added several new buildings with more planned.  OSU has built one new building at its health sciences campus and one new building at the OSU-Tulsa campus in the past decade.  Until OSU steps up and realizes Tulsa is the key to growth for the university in those aforementioned areas (medical, graduate programs, research) Tulsa will continue to stay behind OKC, which has OU and fast-growing UCO in its metro and OUHSC right next to downtown.  Yet OSU keeps building up its Stillwater campus.  I can only hope once T Boone Pickens dies he leaves OSU a lot of money and they are finally are able to fund their Tulsa initiatives.  He has given large donations to UT's medical center, why not his beloved OSU's Medical Center in Tulsa?

TU is a great school but needs to be bigger.  They should strive to be like Vanderbilt, a private research university that has a HUGE impact on Nashville.  Vanderbilt has just over 12,000 students with a little more than half undergraduates and the rest graduate and medical students.  TU should strive to increase its enrollment without sacrificing the quality of students, and to increase their research initiatives especially in engineering and sciences.  TU's impact with even two times the current enrollment (which would be around 9,500 students) would make a large impact in Tulsa.  TU and OU have agreed to form a joint medical school in Tulsa starting in 2014 so that is something to look forward to.  Thankfully OU is involved so we know it will be well-funded.

I think staying relevant in the energy industry (Tulsa is still one of the primary energy cities in the country) and promoting aerospace, along with health and research, will keep us from falling further behind.  We need our universities, specifically OSU but also TU, to step up first.

What is OSU-Tulsa's clout? How are they supposed to get money from the legislature to do this, and why not OU-Tulsa instead of OSU-Tulsa? OSU is the land grant school, OU is the urban school. Unless Tulsa has a huge need for new farmers and elementary teachers?

[Renaissance]

What is OSU-Tulsa's clout? How are they supposed to get money from the legislature to do this, and why not OU-Tulsa instead of OSU-Tulsa? OSU is the land grant school, OU is the urban school. Unless Tulsa has a huge need for new farmers and elementary teachers?

Don't understand your "land grant/urban" distinction.  OU and OSU are both land grant schools established in 1890.

[waterboy]

What he means is OSU was an agricutural school. The AG school image is gone. Though it does have fine programs within the university from what I'm told.

OU was never an Ag college. His question seems good. Why would you think OSU would have more clout here than OU given that both have a big Tulsa presence?

[SXSW]

What is OSU-Tulsa's clout? How are they supposed to get money from the legislature to do this, and why not OU-Tulsa instead of OSU-Tulsa? OSU is the land grant school, OU is the urban school. Unless Tulsa has a huge need for new farmers and elementary teachers?

OSU has the downtown campus while OU is located at the edge of midtown.  I would have much rather seen OU downtown because OU is growth-oriented and has transformed the old Amoco campus at 41st & Yale.  OSU's agricultural tradition does not prevent it from being an urban school. Ohio State and Wisconsin are also land-grant/agricultural schools that are in urban settings.  It's all about OSU's commitment to Tulsa, which I question.  Even though it makes more sense for OSU to focus on Tulsa as its health sciences/graduate studies/research center instead of Stillwater.  

I would love to see OU continue to grow in Tulsa and look forward to seeing what happens with the medical school they are starting here with TU.  That can create some major growth opportunities.  But I also realize OU is heavily invested in Norman with its research facilities and in OKC with its medical campus, while OSU does not have the same existing investments in Stillwater.  Tulsa, being only 62 miles from the OSU campus, is a natural extension for them and the OSU Medical Center/OSU Health Sciences Center is already here.

[spartanokc]

OSU has the downtown campus while OU is located at the edge of midtown.  I would have much rather seen OU downtown because OU is growth-oriented and has transformed the old Amoco campus at 41st & Yale.  OSU's agricultural tradition does not prevent it from being an urban school. Ohio State and Wisconsin are also land-grant/agricultural schools that are in urban settings.  It's all about OSU's commitment to Tulsa, which I question.  Even though it makes more sense for OSU to focus on Tulsa as its health sciences/graduate studies/research center instead of Stillwater.  

Right, and my point isn't even so much as to diss OSU and show my Sooner bias, just to state the obvious: to lawmakers who would be tasked to fund such an expansion of one or the other school (and most of the state legislature is actually OSU-dominated, despite where most of the funding obviously goes) I just think OU is obviously a lot more attractive to them for that. I don't think OSU could get the funding for Tulsa expansion, which is why a lot of so-called OSU-Tulsa expansion has just been circling the wagon; of course we wouldn't even care if Trenapohl (sp?) hadn't made his prediction while he was still there that the campus would be up to 20,000 by 2020.

It could be, but it won't be. A lot of things will be required to come together for either OU or OSU to invest more in Tulsa, and OU is far better positioned to make any of those coalesce. First you need the school to be able to commit some of its own resources to the campus, and OU's endowment is simply twice as big as OSU's (both are pretty big for public universities though). OU's is a lot less volatile, too, because of smarter investment strategies, obviously (OU is invested in crappy real estate whereas OSU is invested in worthless Pickens stock freebies). The 2nd thing you need is the ability to attract big-time donors like Kaiser. I think Tulsa is still mostly "orange country" but obviously the majority of the big-time oil families in Tulsa are OU people and will donate to anything OU-related. And T. Boone doesn't live in Tulsa nor care about Tulsa, as is his right. Thirdly you need to be able to get funding from the state legislature. OSU can get funding from the city of Tulsa but the state has woefully underfunded OSU. They support almost all of their Stillwater building projects, which are impressive, with fundraising. Their fundraising campaign to get $1 billion doesn't include a Tulsa campus however, which would be a tough sell.

Plus, look at OSU's new president, Burns Hargis. I'm a big fan of Hargis, aside from him being the president of OSU. He was president of the OKC Chamber for years and was long-known as one of the most progressive local business leaders at the downtown roundtables. Not many people know that he was a huge proponent of light rail (literally certifiably obsesses with trains), and OKC would not have gotten streetcars passed had it not been for the momentum built up by him. He's obviously personally committed to OKC and just doesn't have as many Tulsa ties. I won't rule it out, because maybe his experience in OKC will lead him to OSU-Tulsa by virtue of obviously being the best OSU branch campus when he tries to capitalize on urban campuses. But who knows?

P.S. If you can't tell, I've gone out of my way in this post to be fair to OSU in all regards, so that people don't accuse me of being full of crap just because they feel insulted.