To me, academic success is your students graduating and going out into the real world and getting good jobs, making good money and giving back to the University.
Awesome. Do you have any statistics to give us which shows this? For some anecdotal evidence, I now make 6-figures after graduating from my beloved USF and give back 5-figures every year (through a company match).
Endowment size is almost ubiquitously viewed as *the* standard for judging a university. There's a reason Harvard has the largest endowment, why UF has by far the largest endowment in our state, and why UCF is closer to (but still behind) FAU than any of the other major public FL universities. Money talks. Degree mills don't fetch large investments from outside entities nor do they typically have capacity to handle capital as well.
You'll need more than flash in the pan success to overtake us in endowment or research expenditures. Good luck with that med school.
You sound like a smart guy.
Our endowment is hilariously small, however that stadium beach bar, tho