It sounds like Texas is doing the taxpayers a favor.

...Mario Díaz, a physicist at the University of Texas at Brownsville...says his department was able to raise more than US$5 million for research on gravitational wave astronomy from the US National Science Foundation, in part because reviewers were encouraged by the prospect of enticing minority students into science.

Now that Brownsville's physics program is kaput, maybe the NSF will be forced to send money to someone who is actually good at gravity wave astronomy?

(I'm assuming, based on the statement quoted above, that Diaz would not have gotten the grant on pure scientific merit. If this is incorrect, his claim is pointless.)