The 25 Best Colleges in Texas for 2019
As everyone knows, Texas is a very big state, and colleges in Texas can be just as big. Thousands of students choose to attend colleges or universities in Texas every year. The Lone Star State ranks near the top of the list in terms of the number of colleges and universities and the number of students enrolled. Even community colleges in Texas are grand.
There are many good reasons to choose to attend colleges in Texas. Students enjoy the mild winters and warm springs, as well as the diversity of landscapes and people the state has to offer. In addition to being national leader in business, technology, agriculture, aerospace, and biomedicine, Texas also has the advantage of being one of the safest and most affordable states to live in.
For the Top 25 Colleges in Texas for 2019, we used the same methodology used in our inaugural 2016 edition of The Best Colleges Top 50 Colleges and Universities in America . In our attempt to create a college ranking system that takes into account what really matters to students and their parents, we've gone beyond investigating standard indicators of academic quality and student satisfaction used by other major ranking systems to also consider indicators of the economic value of a school and the quality of life offered by the city or town in which it is located.
At the top of this year's ranking is Rice University, which has long been recognized as one of the premier universities in Texas and the world, as have the schools in the second and third spots, Trinity University and the University of Texas at Austin (though we imagine a few people might take issue with UT-Austin being ranked higher than Texas A&M).
Many exemplary religious schools have made the list, and they cross various Christian denominations from Baptist to Lutheran to Catholic. Those wanting to add a spiritual component to their education will have no trouble finding a school in Texas. The big metropolises are well-represented, with a wide variety of colleges and universities in Houston, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio. Students who want to stay connected to vibrant and dynamic population centers have some amazing choices in the best colleges in Texas.
We believe our ranking of the top colleges and universities in Texas provides prospective students an excellent starting point for investigating the best colleges and universities in the Lone Star State. We measured each school across a dozen (12) different data points to come up with an overall score for each school. You can read a more detailed explanation of our Texas ranking methodology and data sources by clicking here .
First, we offer a few notes to help you navigate the rankings list. Underneath the school's name is a brief introduction to the school, as well as a little information about the city or town in which it is located. Below that is the school's classification, setting, population and student-to-faculty ratio. By clicking on the magnifying glass icon next to the student-to-teacher ratio, the profile will expand to display additional information on the school and city or town.
What Are The Best Colleges in Texas?
The 25 Best Colleges in Texas for 2019
A small research university known for its programs in the applied sciences, the school also has a strong commitment to undergraduate education, operating on a residential college system with a student-enforced honor code that allows for all tests and exams to be taken home and completed unsupervised at the student's convenience.
Students on the large wooded campus near the Houston museum district have easy access to the amenities of the big and relatively low-cost city, all while attending one of the best colleges in Texas.
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Detailed Ranking Methodology
A college education is among the largest and most important investments of time, effort, and money most Americans will make in their lifetime. The schools in our ranking were put through a rigorous selection process and then objectively evaluated across 12 unique data points in four different categories: economic value, quality of life, academic quality, and student satisfaction. Subjective decisions were limited to which data points to consider and the weight given to each one.
In order to be included in our rankings pool, a school had to be a regionally accredited four-year, bachelor's degree-granting liberal arts college or university in Texas with at least 500 students, a 25th percentile score of 480 in SAT critical reading and math, and an acceptance rate at or below 80%. This ensured that all Texas colleges and universities considered were of significant size and demonstrated some level of selectivity in its admissions process.
Ranking Criteria and Weights
Economic Value – 35%
As the cost of a college education continues to climb and the overall economy struggles, keeping costs and student loan debt low is more important to students (and their parents) than ever. With that in mind, The Best Colleges awarded schools in Texas for having lower real costs, which we calculated by taking the estimated undergraduate student tuition and fees and subtracting the average amount of freshman financial aid. Because the average amount of financial aid packages tracks the tuition costs of the majority of the student body, for public schools that draw most of their students from in-state, we subtracted the average aid amount from in-state tuition costs.
Data on tuition, fees, and aid was taken from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) , which is the core postsecondary education data collection program of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) , a branch of the U.S. Department of Education . After the data was compiled and average aid was subtracted from estimated tuition and fees to get the real cost, the data was standardized using Z-scores and then weighted to give it a 15% overall importance in the final ranking of the top colleges in Texas.
Quality of Life – 30%
Especially during tough economic times like these, many students (and their parents) want to live in a place where they can make a dollar stretch. The Best Colleges measured the buying power of a student's dollar in a given location by the cost-of-living index (COLI), a theoretical price index which measures the relative cost of living in a place base on the relative costs of goods and services. Schools were awarded for being in locations in Texas with a lower COLI.
The COLI of each city/town came from City-Data.com , a private company which collects and analyzes data on thousands of cities and towns across the U.S. After the data was compiled for each one of the cities/towns in our pool, it was standardized using Z-scores and assigned a weight giving it a 15% overall importance in the final ranking of the best colleges in Texas.
Academic Quality – 20%
The quality of a college education is largely determined by the academic quality and competitiveness of the student body. Generally speaking, the more stringent and selective a college is in its admissions process, the better the quality of students. And so The Best Colleges awarded schools in Texas with lower acceptance rates.
Data on acceptance rates was collected from the IPEDS database . After the data was compiled for each one of the schools in our pool, it was standardized using Z-scores and assigned a weight giving it a 10% overall importance in the final ranking of the best schools in Texas.
Student Satisfaction – 15%
In general students are happier and more satisfied at a school where they really want to be. Thus The Best Colleges awarded schools in Texas with higher enrollment rates, which measure the percentage of admitted students who choose to enroll. Generally, a higher enrollment rate indicates a school is more desirable to students who apply.
The most recent available data on enrollment rates was collected from the IPEDS database . After the data was compiled for each one of the schools in our pool, it was standardized using Z-scores and assigned a weight giving it a 5% overall importance in the final ranking of the top schools in Texas.
To determine the best colleges in Texas, we looked at the most important factors prospective students, mainly common predictors of future success and a school's commitment to online programs. This boils down to admissions rate, student loan default rate, retention rate, graduation rate, and the percent of students enrolled in online classes. All data points are taken from information provided by colleges and universities to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Each factor is weighted evenly in order to give an objective view and determine the top 25 colleges in Texas. To calculate our rankings, we looked at a school's ranking when organized by a single factor, and then averaged each category's ranking to find an overall score: Admissions Rate (20%) + Default Rate (20%) + Retention Rate (20%) + Graduation Rate (20%) + Percent of Students Enrolled in Online Classes (20%) = Final score.