Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

Texas

100 colleges on the site: 42 public, 50 private nonprofit, 8 for-profit. Their undergraduates grew 12% in total since fall 2014, to 637,121 today (78 of 100 Texas colleges in the panel).

Explore Texas's colleges

How Texas's colleges changed

The median Texas college, fall 2014 to fall 2024, against the national median (dashed) over the same .

Undergraduates

+3%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+79%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+7.6 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Average total cost

-8%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Public and private

State stories are often public-system stories: a state's publics shrinking while its privates hold, or the reverse.

Public

38 colleges
Undergrads
+8%
Applicants
+72%
Acceptance rate
+10.8 pts
Average cost
-5%

Private nonprofit

37 colleges
Undergrads
-10%
Applicants
+82%
Acceptance rate
+2.4 pts
Average cost
-9%

Where Texas's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. Texas (in-state)93%
  2. CA1%
  3. LA0%
  4. IL0%
  5. CO0%
  6. FL0%
  7. NM0%
  8. NY0%

Public:

2% → 2% (42 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

9% → 8% (50 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
9,225
Outflow
30,680
Net
-21,455

Texas's colleges enroll 0.3 first-years from other states for every Texas resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. Texas Christian University14%
  2. Baylor University13%
  3. Southern Methodist University10%
  4. The University of Texas at Austin8%
  5. Texas A&M University-College Station7%

One fall, over campus-based colleges only: not that fall, not for-profit, and not a campus that merged or split.

Biggest movers in Texas

The same as the national lists, restricted to Texas's colleges.

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +70.2% (43 colleges ranked)

  1. 1The University of Texas at Dallas+231.6%9,587 → 31,789
  2. 2University of the Incarnate Word+165.8%4,257 → 11,316
  3. 3The University of Texas at Tyler+159.9%2,156 → 5,603
  4. 4The University of Texas at Arlington+140.3%10,245 → 24,623
  5. 5Midwestern State University+139.4%3,259 → 7,803
  6. 6University of North Texas+128.5%16,842 → 38,477
  7. 7Trinity University+127.3%5,502 → 12,506
  8. 8Dallas Baptist University+121.1%2,787 → 6,163
  9. 9University of Houston-Downtown+102.5%3,235 → 6,551
  10. 10Lamar University+96.6%4,572 → 8,990

Sources:IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Grew the most

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +3.9% (63 colleges ranked)

  1. 1University of St Thomas+106.0%1,563 → 3,220
  2. 2Texas A&M University-San Antonio+81.8%3,630 (fall 2015) → 6,599
  3. 3The University of Texas at Dallas+52.1%14,300 → 21,751
  4. 4Texas A&M University-Texarkana+43.0%1,386 → 1,982
  5. 5East Texas A&M University+34.7%7,358 → 9,912
  6. 6The University of Texas at Tyler+34.1%5,550 → 7,440
  7. 7Prairie View A & M University+28.6%6,905 → 8,877
  8. 8The University of Texas at San Antonio+28.4%23,815 → 30,580
  9. 9Texas Christian University+28.2%8,600 → 11,026
  10. 10University of North Texas at Dallas+27.9%2,251 → 2,878

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

(in 2023–24 dollars), 2013–14 to 2023–24

Median college: −7.7% (59 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Wiley University−55.3%$17,813 → $7,959
  2. 2Lamar University−37.7%$23,179 → $14,443
  3. 3University of Houston-Clear Lake−37.6%$23,821 (2014–15) → $14,862
  4. 4Nelson University−25.0%$31,546 → $23,663
  5. 5Hardin-Simmons University−25.0%$27,442 → $20,587
  6. 6Texas Wesleyan University−24.6%$34,284 → $25,864
  7. 7Texas A&M University-Kingsville−21.6%$18,499 → $14,511
  8. 8University of St Thomas−21.5%$32,809 → $25,767
  9. 9The University of Texas at San Antonio−21.3%$20,843 → $16,405
  10. 10Stephen F Austin State University−20.3%$22,641 → $18,039

Sources:IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2013 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Public research universities

Texas's public R1 and R2 universities (Carnegie 2025), with their undergraduate change over the same window. No classification in the data means "flagship," so this is simply the state's public research universities.

How this was measured

  • Which colleges. Colleges with 300 or more undergraduates in both fall 2014 and fall 2024: 78 of 100 Texas colleges. It's a , so colleges entering or leaving the data don't look like change.
  • Average total cost is an academic-year figure, one year behind fall: 2013–14 to 2023–24, after inflation.
  • Out-of-state shares are collected in even-numbered falls only; odd years are gaps, not zeros.
  • Totals and medians both appear because they can diverge: a state's total can fall more (or less) than its median college when its biggest colleges move differently.
  • No policy attribution. This page shows what changed, not why; a state's mix of public, private, and for-profit colleges, and its system policies, aren't broken out as causes.
  • First-years crossing state lines is a single snapshot, fall 2024, over campus-based colleges only: colleges that fall, for-profit colleges, and campuses that merged or split are left out. It's the newest fall the site's per-college home-state tables cover, not this page's ten-year window.

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (part C, residence of first-time students), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)