commercial development. In 2009, UT created nine new start-up companies to commercialize tech

CEOs.[62] Similarly, a 2005 USA Today report ranked the university as "the number one source of new Fortune 1000 CEOs."[63] A "payback" analysis published by SmartMoney in 2011 comparing graduates' salaries to tuition costs concluded that the school was the second-best value of all colleges in the nation, behind only Georgia Tech.[64][65] A 2013 College Database study found that UT was 22nd in the nation in terms of increased lifetime earnings by graduates.[66]
Research[edit]



Harlan J. Smith Telescope
Except for MIT, UT attracts more federal research grants than any American university without a medical school.[67] For the 2009–2010 school year, the university exceeded $640 million in research funding (up from $590 million the previous year)[67] and has earned more than 300 patents since 2003.[68] UT houses the Office of Technology Commercialization, a technology transfer center which serves as the bridge between laboratory research and commercial development. In 2009, UT created nine new start-up companies to commercialize technology developed at the university and has created 46 start-ups in the past seven years. UT license agreements generated $10.9 million in revenue for the university in 2009.[68]
Research at UT is largely focused in the engineering and physical sciences,[69] and is a world-leading research institution in fields such as computer science.[70] Energy is a major research thrust of the university, with major federally funded projects on biofuels,[71] battery and solar cell technology, and geological carbon dioxide storage,[72] water purification membranes, among others. In 2009, UT founded the Energy Institute, led by former Under Secretary for Science Raymond L. Orbach, to organize and advance multi-disciplinary energy research at the university.[73] While the university does not have a medical school, it houses medical programs associated with other campuses and allied health professional programs, as well as major research programs in pharmacy, biomedical engineering, neuroscience and others.
UT opened the $100 million Dell Pediatric Research Institute in 2010 as part of an effort to increase medical research at the university and establish a medical research complex, and associated medical school, in the city of Austin.[74][75]
UT operates several major auxiliary research centers. The world's third-largest telescope, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, and three other large telescopes are part of UT's McDonald Observatory, 450 miles (720 km) west of Austin.[76][77] The university manages nearly 300 acres (1.2 km2) of biological field laboratories, including the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in Austin. The Center for Agile Technology focuses on software development challenges.[78] The J.J. Pickle Research Campus (PRC) is home to the Texas Advanced Computing Center which operates the Ranger supercomputer, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world,[79] as well as the Microelectronics Research Center which houses micro- and nanoelectronics research and features a 15,000 square foot (1,400 m2) cleanroom for device fabrication. Founded in 1946, UT's Applied Research Laboratories at the PRC has been responsible for the development or testing of the vast majority of high-frequency sonar equipment used by the Navy, and in 2007, was gr