Five stories that have North Texas talking: Everybody’s transplanting to Texas; Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants to cut financial aid to lower college tuition; State of the Arts is coming to Fort Worth; and more.
Texas' population has been steadily climbing for more than a decade, and while international immigration remains strong, it's domestic migration that accounts for the surge. “From 2005 to 2013, an estimated5.9 million people moved to Texas, and 4.8 million of those came from one of the other 49 states,” The Texas Tribune reported. Even when you factor the people who’ve left the state, an average of 345 people came into Texas per day during that time period.
Most of those migrants, typically ages 18-44, male and non-Hispanic, are coming from California — a state that also sees big population turnover. In 2013 alone, almost 31,000 Californians moved to the Lone Star State, according to The Tribune. “It’s a trend that’s similar among foreign-born migrants. In 2013, more foreign-born people came to the state after having first lived inCalifornia than any other state. That said, more than 80 percent of those moving here from other states were born in the United States.”
Yes, Texas is spacious, but where have all these people been going? Big cities and the suburbs. Between 2009 and 2013, North Texas had large net gains: Collin County (4,587), Dallas County (2,811), Denton (5,000) and Tarrant County (8,965), according to the Office of the State Demographer, U.S. Census Bureau.
Read more findings from the Office of the State Demographer, U.S. Census Bureau. [The Texas Tribune]
- Sen. John Cornyn has not endorsed colleague and fellow Texan Sen. Ted Cruz, and here’s why. “I don’t really think it’s appropriate for me to be picking and choosing in the primaries,” Cornyn told KERA’s Krys Boyd on Monday. “One thing, it’s pretty dumb politics for a Republican to choose between Republicans in a contested primary because obviously you’re going to be offending some people.” Cornyn talked about the new legislation he’s sponsoring, the presidential race and much more in his interview on Think, recorded in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. Listen to the conversation and see who else Krys Boyd will be talking to this week. [KERA]
- Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants to cut financial aid and to make colleges prove they need more money in order to combat rising tuition costs. The Dallas Morning News reported: “On average, Texas college students paid just less than $1,000 a year in 1990, compared with more than $7,000 now.” To bring down those costs, Patrick thinks Texas should stop setting aside 20 percent of undergraduate tuition revenue that funds financial aid programs. The Morning News reported: “While he supports ensuring that students have access to other means of financial aid, Patrick said, colleges and universities could cut tuition and fees by 25 percent if the Legislature does away with set-asides.” He also thinks colleges should be required to prove why they deserve tuition hikes. Read more. [The Dallas Morning News]
- The directors of Fort Worth’s premier art museums will join Art&Seek for an unprecedented conversation. State of the Arts, the conversation series with North Texas artists and arts leaders, is coming to Fort Worth, thanks to a partnership between Art&Seek and Kimbell Art Museum. Art&Seek reported: “And it opens with something unusual: On May 13, Jerome Weeks, Art&Seek’s senior arts reporter/producer, will lead a discussion with Andrew Walker, of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art; Eric M. Lee of the Kimbell Art Museum and Marla Price, from Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.” State of the Arts: The Fort Worth Art Museums will take place at 7 p.m. on May 13 in the Renzo Piano Pavilion.
- The lawyer who threatened to sue a Mansfield diner when it ran out of soup won’t follow through. In a letter to Our Place, Dwain Downing demanded $2.25 for his losses when he was denied a substitution or discount on the Saturday special plus $250 for legal fees. Owner Benji Arslanovksi published the letter on Facebook, and the comments started pouring in. He even invited the public to donate soup cans to the restaurant to make light of the situation. The viral attention was too overwhelming for Downing, so he has retracted the lawsuit, but he still feels wronged, WFAA reported. Read more. [WFAA]
