a roaring gift

University of Houston nets $4.5 million gift from local family estate

University of Houston central campus exterior Ezekiel Cullen building

University of Houston is the recipient of a generous donation from a local family.

Photo courtesy of University of Houston

The University of Houston Cougars are no doubt licking their wounds after a sound dismissal by Baylor University at the NCAA Men’s Final Four Tournament on April 3. But now, the Coogs have a reason to again roar.

UH has received a $4.5 million gift to establish an endowed chair in the Cullen College of Engineering; a scholarship endowment available to students throughout the University; and an endowed lecture series focused on equity and social justice, which will reside in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

This new gift comes courtesy of the Thomas Michael Panos family estate per, a press release.

Meanwhile, an additional $2 million has been matched by the University’s new “$100 Million Challenge” Aspire Fund — which makes the total impact of the Panos Family Estate gift at least $6.5 million. This is the first matched gift since the fund was established, the school notes.

Breaking down the numbers, $2 million creates a Panos Family endowed chair in mechanical engineering. Another $2 million establishes a scholarship endowment to support need-and-merit-based scholarships for all full-time undergraduate or graduate students. And $500,000 supports “The Panos Family Endowed Lecture in Equity and Social Justice” in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. It’s meant to bring awareness and ideas from local, national and international thought leaders.

A little about the Panos family: In Houston’s early days, elder statesman Thomas Michael Panos emigrated from Greece to the Bayou City with only a sixth-grade education. Thomas and his wife instilled in their children — Mike, Effie and Gus — a passion for education and the importance of giving back, per press materials.

“They were the kind of people who would help anybody,” said Scott Harbers, friend and trustee of the family’s estate, in a statement. (Harbers who lived next door to the Panos family decades ago in what is now Midtown.) “As a family of immigrants, I know they would appreciate the diversity of the student body at the University of Houston. They had a tremendous interest in education and equal rights. I’m hopeful that this gift will help advance the lives of students who need help to complete their studies.”

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Jobs report

Texas clocks in as No. 7 best state to find a job, new report says

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

It's easier to find a job in Texas than in nearly any other state.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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