Graduate school may be a critical step in your higher education, whether you are interested in expanding your knowledge, learning a specialization, or earning advanced credentials required by your profession. The best graduate schools in Texas offer advanced degrees, such as master’s and doctoral degrees, as well as opportunities for independent research, mentorships, and professional networking.
Texas offers more than 30 colleges and universities that serve communities of 10,000 students or more. The largest school in the bunch (and in the nation), Texas A&M University in College Station serves more than 65,000 students. The University of Texas at Austin is the next largest, serving about 45,000 students — but it too has a big claim to fame, as the wealthiest public university in the United States. Texas’s private colleges and universities, including Baylor University and Southern Methodist University, are also impressive in size and scope. The majority of these schools have religious affiliations and offer degrees in a variety fields, such as nursing, religious studies, criminal justice, business, and education.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
For students who prefer a more intimate educational environment, Texas offers a long list of smaller public and private colleges and universities, such as Abilene Christian University and University of Texas of the Permian Basin. Additionally, Texas has generous loan forgiveness programs for qualifying nurses, physicians, teachers, legal aid attorneys, and lawyers who work in the Texas Attorney General’s office.
Texas is known for doing things big. Big cities, big open spaces and, of course, big fun. Whether you’re hitting up the live music scene in Austin, catching a Cowboys game in Dallas, or strolling down the River Walk in San Antonio, you’re sure to have a good time. And, with more than 150 higher education institutes, it’s safe to say The Lone Star State is big on education too.
If you’re looking to earn your degree in the state of Texas, you’ll have plenty of higher learning institutes to choose from.
We have identified 43 doctorate-granting universities in Texas; 29 of which meet the criteria below:
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why influence gets at the heart of what is truly best in education. At the undergraduate level, the best colleges and universities are those with the highest concentration of influence. Our Concentrated Influence metric adjusts overall influence by size of undergraduate student body, thus allowing smaller schools to compete with larger schools so long as they have proportionately as strong influential faculty and alums.
But at the graduate level, the combined influence score of a college or university’s top academic influencers is the best indicator of academic excellence. Overall influence, and not influence controlled by other variables, thus becomes the best gauge of academic excellence at the graduate level. Where smaller size is an advantage at the undergraduate level (hence Concentrated Influence), graduate studies benefit from a large and vibrant community of graduate students, who promise to become the new generation of academic influencers.
If you are serious about finding the best graduate schools, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching, and whether their graduates themselves are advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence. Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Influence, as measured by our InfluenceRanking engine, provides a ranking that is free from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
Find out more about our methodology here.
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
32%
Graduation
88%
Student body
44K
Median SAT/ACT
1355/30
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University of Texas at Austin’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$51K
Acceptance
11%
Graduation
94%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1520/34
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Rice University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
63%
Graduation
83%
Student body
59K
Median SAT/ACT
1275/28
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Texas A&M University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
63%
Graduation
62%
Student body
37K
Median SAT/ACT
1225/24
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University of Houston’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
53%
Graduation
81%
Student body
10K
Median SAT/ACT
1390/31
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Southern Methodist University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
69%
Student body
26K
Median SAT/ACT
1350/29
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University of Texas at Dallas’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
63%
Student body
35K
Median SAT/ACT
1165/24
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Texas Tech University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$49K
Acceptance
68%
Graduation
79%
Student body
17K
Median SAT/ACT
1290/29
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Baylor University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
84%
Graduation
57%
Student body
35K
Median SAT/ACT
1155/24
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University of North Texas’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
88%
Graduation
52%
Student body
40K
Median SAT/ACT
1145/23
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University of Texas at Arlington’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
58%
Student body
19K
Median SAT/ACT
1065/21
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Sam Houston State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$52K
Acceptance
48%
Graduation
82%
Student body
10K
Median SAT/ACT
1250/28
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Texas Christian University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$35K
Acceptance
72%
Graduation
47%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1100/21
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Houston Baptist University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
85%
Graduation
59%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1130/23
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St. Mary's University, Texas’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
85%
Graduation
55%
Student body
32K
Median SAT/ACT
1095/22
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Texas State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$45K
Acceptance
54%
Graduation
69%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1245/27
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University of Dallas’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$38K
Acceptance
63%
Graduation
66%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1122/24
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Abilene Christian University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
59%
Graduation
46%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1005/18
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Texas A&M International University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
82%
Graduation
47%
Student body
27K
Median SAT/ACT
1040/19
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University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$32K
Acceptance
96%
Graduation
66%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1150/23
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University of St. Thomas ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$31K
Acceptance
91%
Graduation
55%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1056/20
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Hardin–Simmons University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
76%
Graduation
54%
Student body
11K
Median SAT/ACT
1085/21
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Stephen F. Austin State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
58%
Graduation
44%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1040/20
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West Texas A&M University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$32K
Acceptance
97%
Graduation
56%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1055/20
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University of the Incarnate Word’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$32K
Acceptance
99%
Graduation
56%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1140/23
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Dallas Baptist University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
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