According to College Navigator, there are 55 public colleges, 57 private non-profit colleges, and 22 private for-profit colleges in Texas.
According to estimates from College Board, the average tuition and fees at a public school in Texas was $11,100 during the 2021-22 academic year.
During the 2020-21 academic year, College Board reports that the average undergraduate U.S. college student who enrolled full-time received $14,800 in financial aid.
This list features some of the best brick-and-mortar schools in Texas. Each school featured is a nonprofit, accredited institution — either public or private — with a high standard of academic quality for post-secondary institutions. We included liberal arts colleges and research universities as well as small, midsize, and large institutions. Next, we compared this comprehensive list to a list of aggregated college rankings from reputable publications like the U.S. News & World Report among others to simplify a student’s college search. We pored through these rankings so students don’t have to.
The colleges on our list are accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), a reputable organization that examines the objectives, quality, and overall effectiveness of education programs in the southern United States.
We evaluated each school on tuition costs, admission, retention and graduation rates, faculty, and reputation as well as the student resources provided for on-campus students. Then we calculated the Intelligent Score on a scale of 0 to 100. Read more about our ranking methodology.
As you evaluate college options in Texas, you should consider how a degree will prepare you to enter the state’s workforce. The state’s top industries for employment were trade, transportation, and utilities; government; professional and business services; goods-producing; and education and health services in October 2021.
Many job seekers in Texas end up working in the state’s fastest growing career paths. The five careers for workers with a bachelor’s degree that are seeing the most job growth within the state are data scientists, information security analysts, logisticians, medical and health services managers, and operations research analysts.
Texas is a large state that has many companies employing thousands of people, and a number of employers have tens of thousands of people working for them. A few of the state’s largest employers include the University of Texas at Austin, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas Department of Transportation, UTMB Health Diagnostic Imaging, and Chevron.
When researching Texas’s college options, pay attention to financial aid. The following are some helpful state and federal resources that will assist you in identifying grant, scholarship, and other financial aid opportunities in Texas.