If you have heard about a piece of higher education legislation in Texas, chances are it was written by state Sen. Brandon Creighton. Now, he is heading to the Texas Tech System.
Since he took over the Texas Senate Education Committee in 2023, Creighton, R-Conroe, authored some of the Republican party’s most impactful higher education priorities that were then signed into law. These measures increased the power of university boards of regents over college curriculum, tightened protest restrictions on university campuses and ended diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in public higher education institutions.
The longtime legislator’s laws have drawn praise from Republican officials and stringent opposition from Democrats and major faculty groups like the American Association of University Professors.
However, Creighton’s nearly 20-year career in the Texas Legislature will come to an end after the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents named him the sole finalist to be the system’s next chancellor on Thursday. If confirmed after the mandatory 21-day waiting period, Creighton will become chief executive of the system and oversee its five schools and over 60,000 students.
“Sen. Creighton is a dynamic and proven leader,” board chairman Cody Campbell said. “With his experience, relationships and dedication, Sen. Creighton is uniquely positioned to advance the mission of the Texas Tech University System.”
Creighton is poised to join the ranks of prominent university officials from the Texas political sphere who were appointed this year, including former state Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, and former comptroller Glenn Hegar. Both lead the UT and Texas A&M Systems, respectively.
The legislators bring value to the systems they serve because of their government connections, said Mark Strama, director of the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life. Former state Rep. Strama, D-Austin, served with Creighton when they were both in the Texas House of Representatives from 2007 to 2013, and has also since switched to working in higher education.
“For a public university, it really is important to be connected with the legislature,” said Strama, a professor of practice at Moody College of Communication. “It’s one of your biggest sources of funding. They make the rules that govern how the university operates and having some connective tissue back to the legislature is really valuable for a public university system.”
The move almost certainly ends Creighton’s time in political office as high-paying higher education jobs are rarely used to seek lower-paying public office, said Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project. The base salary of the Texas Tech Chancellor for fiscal year 2025 was over $1 million, orders of magnitude larger than the $7,200 annual salary Creighton made as a state senator.
Blank said it is unclear who will replace Creighton as the higher education standard bearer for the Texas Republican party. Legislators tend not to gravitate toward higher education legislation because it is not an area of governance with big donors or that’s likely to catapult a legislator’s political career, he said.
“There’s not a depth chart, and now they say, ‘Who’s next up?” Blank said. “It has to do with who else is leaving the legislature … whether committees are having chairs open up — who is the lieutenant governor happy with? There’s all these things that are going to go into who emerges as the new leader in the senate on higher education.”
