Texas for College Students
Texas's college-town identities are genuinely distinct: Austin (University of Texas at Austin), College Station (Texas A&M), Lubbock (Texas Tech), Houston (Rice University, University of Houston), Waco (Baylor), and San Marcos (Texas State) each offer a different college experience.
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Learn moreUT Austin anchors Texas's largest, most prominent university identity within a major tech-forward metro
The University of Texas at Austin enrolled a record 55,000 total students in Fall 2025 (44,314 undergraduate, 10,686 graduate) -- the largest enrollment in the university's 142-year history -- embedded within Austin's major, diversified tech-forward metro rather than a smaller standalone college town, giving students genuine access to internships and post-graduation employment at Tesla, Apple, Samsung, Dell, IBM, Google, and Amazon's major Austin-area operations.
Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor anchor genuinely distinct large-university college-town experiences
Texas A&M University (College Station) and Texas Tech University (Lubbock) each anchor a genuinely large, distinct public-university college-town identity, separate in scale and character from Austin's urban-metro setting. Baylor University (Waco), a private university, anchors its own distinct college-town identity in Central Texas.
Rice University, the University of Houston, SMU, TCU, UTSA, and UTEP round out a genuinely varied network
Rice University is a nationally prominent private research university in Houston, genuinely distinct in scale and selectivity from Texas's large public flagships, alongside the University of Houston's own large public-university presence in the same metro. Southern Methodist University (Dallas) and Texas Christian University (Fort Worth) each anchor their own private-university identity in North Texas, while the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) each serve their respective metros with a genuinely different urban-campus student experience. Texas State University (San Marcos), between Austin and San Antonio along the I-35 corridor, anchors its own distinct college-town identity.
Key takeaways
- UT Austin anchors Texas's largest, most prominent university identity (record 55,000 total students, Fall 2025) within a major, diversified tech-forward metro.
- Texas A&M (College Station), Texas Tech (Lubbock), and Baylor (Waco) each anchor genuinely distinct large-university college-town identities.
- Rice University and the University of Houston (Houston), SMU (Dallas), TCU (Fort Worth), UTSA (San Antonio), UTEP (El Paso), and Texas State (San Marcos) round out a genuinely varied statewide network.
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