Legislation intended to increase the number of top-tier research universities in Texas enjoys wide support among state lawmakers and appears likely to pass this session. Whether it will achieve the goal is another question.

To hear some lawmakers discuss the matter, the increases in funding currently envisioned should propel some of the state's public universities onto the national stage in five or 10 years. Higher education leaders say the reality is more sobering.

"Obviously with more funding, you could move up somewhat quicker," said Raymund Paredes, the state's higher education commissioner. "But it's not just a function of money. It's a function of how deliberate the process is.

"I think it's going to take any of those institutions 20 years to get there and some considerably longer — somewhere in the space of 20 to 40 years."

Paredes and Larry Faulkner, former president of the University of Texas at Austin, say the University of California, San Diego, underscores the point.

Despite generous state funding and political support, it took more than 20 years for the school to establish itself as a national player. And that was considered a meteoric rise.

Only three institutions in Texas are top-tier universities, also known as tier-one or national research universities: UT-Austin and Texas A&M University, both of which are public, and Rice University, a private school. All are powerful engines for research, intellectual inquiry and economic development.

There is no precise and universally accepted definition of a tier-one school. One frequently cited benchmark is membership in the Association of American Universities, an organization of 60 major research universities in the United States and two in Canada. Another measure is annual research spending of $100 million or more. Texas' three tier-one universities meet those criteria.

Faculty honors, such as membership in the National Academy of Sciences, and student performance in high school and on admission tests are important as well. A good showing in various national rankings, such as those compiled by U.S. News & World Report, helps, too.

Seven of the state's 35 public universities aspire to that lofty status: UT-El Paso, UT-Dallas, UT-San Antonio, UT-Arlington, the University of Houston, Texas Tech University and the University of North Texas. All have strengths and weaknesses.

For example, Texas Tech has law and medical schools, as well as outsized ambition — its strategic plan said five years ago that it would achieve national academic prominence by now — but its location, dusty and windswept Lubbock, is a tough sell to top-flight scholars.

Entering freshmen at UT-Dallas boast class ranks and test scores competitive with those of UT-Austin, but the school's annual research expenditures are barely a tenth of the flagship's.

And although the University of Houston is in a major city with vast economic and philanthropic potential, the school's graduation rates and other measures of academic excellence aren't so impressive.

Perhaps the most efficient approach would be for lawmakers to designate a couple of universities for extra money or instruct the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to do so. But any such effort would be dead on arrival because of opposition from lawmakers representing the schools that weren't selected, said Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, chairwoman of the Senate Higher Education Committee.

Instead, Zaffirini and Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, who leads the House Higher Education Committee, have crafted legislation that is far more palatable politically.

Under their plans, which are similar but not identical, the seven universities would compete for extra state funding, on top of normal appropriations, based on such measures as how much money they raise from donors and how much they spend on research. For example, the state would match up to 100 percent of private gifts to a school — assuming, of course, that legislative appropriations were adequate.

"At some point, winners will start emerging out of the seven," said Branch, whose measure sailed through the House last week with 92 authors and co-authors out of 150 members in that chamber.

Zaffirini's proposal — 17 of 31 senators signed onto it — passed the Senate unanimously on Wednesday. A day later, senators approved a companion bill authored by Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, following a debate between Duncan and Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, that illustrated the sometimes-dicey politics of higher education.

Under Duncan's measure, the seven schools would have to reach several of various benchmarks before they could receive money from a proposed new fund. Shapleigh objected to one of the benchmarks — awarding at least 200 doctor of philosophy degrees a year — because he said it would benefit larger schools such as Texas Tech and the University of Houston.

Duncan, whose senatorial district includes Texas Tech, said other benchmarks for qualifying, such as enrolling a freshman class with high academic achievement, are sufficiently broad.

"We've tried to do everything we can do to make sure the ladder is down and climbable by all of these institutions," Duncan said.

Funding is an open question. The House version of the two-year state budget includes $210 million for which the seven schools would compete. The Senate version sets aside nothing.

And although Duncan's bill would transfer nearly $500 million in state funds into a permanent endowment for the emerging institutions — subject to voter approval — that would probably generate no more than about $25 million a year.

Propelling just one campus into the top tier might require a $100 million annual infusion of state money and private donations for many years, Paredes said. Still, he said, passage of the legislation would be a major step in charting a pathway.