It's not Kansas. As I mentioned in my first post on the subject, a bunch of universities are all trying to do the same thing. With NIH funding flat, it's pretty unlikely that all (or even most) will succeed. If UCSF or Harvard said they were going to quadruple their funding in the current funding environment, I'd think they were being rather optimistic as well. In fact, Kansas would probably have an easier time with a quadrupling since they are starting from a lower base.

I spent some time in Kansas City recently and was pleasantly surprised. The city council has been doing some thoughtful urban planning, and, despite my coastal bias, it looks like a good place to live, especially given the low cost of living. So that should help.

Michael Lewis's book Moneyball describes how the Oakland A's built a great team on the cheap a few years back by using statistics to figure out what players contributed the most to team wins. It turns out it wasn't the obvious (and expensive) superstars; rather than hiring a bunch of showboating home run hitters, they brought in cheaper players who consistently got on base. It worked like a charm, at least for the first season (not being a baseball fan, I'm not sure they've held up or if they're still following the strategy).

I wonder if there are similar kinds of strategies that KUMC could follow?