AUSTIN, Texas (AP) If colleges were automobiles, the University of Texas at Austin would be a Cadillac: a famous brand, a powerful engine of research and teaching, handsome in appearance. Even the price is comparable: Like one of the luxury car's models, in-state tuition for a four-year degree runs about $40,000.

But in an era of budget-cutting and soaring tuition, is there still a place for "Cadillacs" elite, public research institutions like Texas, Michigan, California-Berkeley and Virginia that try to compete with the world's best? Or should the focus be on more affordable and efficient options, like the old Chevrolet Bel Air?

It's the central question in a pointed clash of cultures in higher education. And when Gene Powell the former UT football player and San Antonio real estate developer who chairs the Texas board of regents raised it with precisely that automotive comparison, reaction was swift and angry.

Convinced the state board was hell-bent on turning their beloved "university of the first class" required by the Texas constitution into a downmarket trade school, faculty, students and alumni have rallied behind campus president Bill Powers in protest.

Powell insists he wants UT-Austin to be great but also accessible, and for students to have options. Republican Gov. Rick Perry and many of the reform-minded regents he's appointed have made clear they think UT's quest for global prestige has produced too much ivory-tower research, and too little focus on teaching and keeping college affordable for Texans.

In Perry's push for accountability and productivity, many here see something nefarious: a campaign, rooted in a longstanding anti-intellectual strain of Texas politics, to gut a university that shouldn't have to apologize for being "elite."

"I just don't understand why they want to dumb down a public institution of this magnitude," said Machree Gibson, chairman of the Texas Exes, UT's powerful and independent 99,000 member alumni society, which has pushed back.

With Perry due to appoint three new regents this month, the fight is set to flare up again. But the debate is bigger even than Texas.

Like-minded governors in Florida, Wisconsin and elsewhere are watching how Perry and his allies fare. Unusually, it's political conservatives who are the radical reformers, and their opponents the ones digging in to resist upending well-established institutions.

Along the way, career casualties are piling up. Over the last 18 months, presidents of 11 of the 35 leading public research universities have quit or been fired. That doesn't include the University of Virginia, where a reform-minded board fired President Teresa Sullivan, only to reinstate her two weeks later after a faculty revolt.

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Texas fight highlights higher ed culture clash