Public colleges and universities account for almost 75 percent of all undergraduate students in the U.S. The best public colleges in Texas provide broad access to reputable degree programs, affordable tuition, and sprawling educational communities.
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.
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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.
Public and private colleges and universities operate under different business models. Public colleges and universities are owned by the state and receive both state and federal funding to operate. Private colleges and universities are private companies with private funding. If you’re looking at the pros and cons of private vs. public colleges, consider that many public colleges provide diverse course offerings, influential professors, and an excellent return on your investment.
Public colleges are schools that receive most of their funding from tax revenues. As a result, the cost of a bachelor’s degree at a public university is often lower than the equivalent cost at a private college — especially for students attending a public school in their home state. Attending a college in-state is usually the cheapest option. Private universities and colleges can be very competitive with their funding opportunities, so do not simply believe that private colleges are always going to be more expensive. According to National Center for Educational Statistics, the average annual cost (tuition, fees, room and board for full-time students) at a public university was slightly over $20,000. In contrast, private universities cost, on average, nearly $43,000 annually. But in the end, the cost of college comes down to each student’s academic and financial situation.
This list is composed entirely of public colleges and universities that offer bachelor’s degrees. We’ve identified 37 public universities in Texas. To be included in our list of the best public colleges in Texas, shcools must receive direct funding from the state, be fully accredited, and offer a broad range of bachelor’s degress.
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great! If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities for a bachelor’s degree, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching and whether their graduates are themselves advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence in their fields of study.
Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Concentrated Influence provides a ranking that is freer from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
To rank the influence of schools, we first determine the influence of scholars and professionals based on the number of citations and publications they have had over the past 10 years. In addition to publications and citations, we consider the web links to and from these sources, and the page views of those sources. We then match the influential people to their alma maters and institutions of employment, so that their influence is attributed to those schools. Our machine-learning Influence Ranking algorithm produces a numerical score of academic achievements, merits, and citations across Wikipedia, wikidata, Crossref, Semantic Scholar and an ever-growing body of data. If you are interested in exploring how and why we rank by influence, explore our methodology in more depth.
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
32%
Graduation
88%
Student body
44K
Median SAT/ACT
1355/30
University of Texas at Austin’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
63%
Graduation
83%
Student body
59K
Median SAT/ACT
1275/28
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
University of Houston’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
63%
Student body
35K
Median SAT/ACT
1165/24
Texas Tech University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
69%
Student body
26K
Median SAT/ACT
1350/29
University of Texas at Dallas’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
84%
Graduation
57%
Student body
35K
Median SAT/ACT
1155/24
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
University of Texas at Arlington’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
84%
Graduation
46%
Student body
28K
Median SAT/ACT
1125/22
University of Texas at San Antonio’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
100%
Graduation
44%
Student body
20K
University of Texas at El Paso’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
66%
Graduation
19%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
920/16
Texas Southern University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
85%
Graduation
55%
Student body
32K
Median SAT/ACT
1095/22
Texas State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
58%
Student body
19K
Median SAT/ACT
1065/21
Sam Houston State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
83%
Graduation
37%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1050/20
Lamar University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
82%
Graduation
47%
Student body
27K
Median SAT/ACT
1040/19
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
76%
Graduation
37%
Student body
9K
Median SAT/ACT
955/18
Prairie View A&M University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
43%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1025/20
Angelo State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
76%
Graduation
54%
Student body
11K
Median SAT/ACT
1085/21
Stephen F. Austin State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
94%
Graduation
48%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1040/19
Texas Woman's University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
59%
Graduation
46%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1005/18
Texas A&M International University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
43%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1155/24
University of Texas at Tyler’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
81%
Graduation
52%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1105/21
University of Houston–Clear Lake’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
82%
Graduation
47%
Student body
27K
Median SAT/ACT
1040/19
University of Texas–Pan American’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
71%
Graduation
44%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1025/19
Midwestern State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
58%
Graduation
46%
Student body
11K
Median SAT/ACT
1045/20
Tarleton 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
West Texas A&M University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Many of our 2022 undergraduate focused rankings look considerably different than 2021. That’s because we took a fundamentally different apporach. For 2021 we utiulized our Concentrated Influence algorithm, designed to take away the size advantage larger schools have when we rank their faculty and alumni’s academic influence. Concentrated influence highlights smaller schools that are proportionally as successful as larger universities at cultivating influential alumni and faculty.
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