Texas State Profile

In 1903, the doors to Southwest Texas State Normal School in San Marcos opened to 17 faculty members and a student body of 303. More than 125 years later, Texas State University serves over 40,000 students with more than 5,000 faculty and staff. As the 6th largest public university in Texas, it is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. Texas State students choose from bachelor’s, master’s, specialist, and doctoral degrees as well as undergraduate and graduate certificate programs. Texas State’s Round Rock Campus, slightly north of Austin, is expanding to meet the needs of Williamson County's rapid population growth and offers dozens of bachelor's and graduate degrees in areas from health professions to business, communications, and more.

Texas State is now a large, public, doctoral-granting, Hispanic-serving Institution with a student-centered focus dedicated to excellence in serving the educational needs of Texas and the world. It has been named one of the nation’s best universities by U.S. News and World Report, Forbes, Money, The Princeton Review, and The Wall Street Journal. Over half of Texas State students come from the Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, and South Texas regions reflecting the broad appeal of the University to students from across the state. These areas, combined with the Central Texas region, account for over 88% of Texas State attendees. Students from the Northwest, Southeast, and High Plains regions are the fastest growing areas from within Texas. However, in recent years the largest increase is from outside of the US, a sign of the increasing international appeal of Texas State. Over the past 10 years, the University has enrolled students from every region in Texas, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, 4 U.S. Territories, and more than 115 foreign countries.

The current student body of more than 40,000 reflects the multi-ethnic and cultural diversity of the state with more than 55 percent ethnic minorities and a large number of undergraduates (36 percent) who are Pell Grant recipients. Eighty-nine percent of students are undergraduates while 11 percent are engaged in graduate study. Hispanic enrollment at Texas State has increased over 40% in the past decade, well above the growth rate of Hispanics at all Texas public universities. The University has been designated an Hispanic-Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities.

Over 2,000 faculty members support coursework, students and research through the College of Applied Arts, McCoy College of Business, the College of Education, the College of Fine Arts and Communication, the College of Health Professions, the College of Liberal Arts, and the College of Science and Engineering. The Honors College offers interdisciplinary coursework for high ability students and The Graduate College coordinates the master’s and doctoral programs across the San Marcos and Round Rock campuses.

U.S. News and World Report lists Texas State University as a selective institution. Over 42% of the incoming cohort are from the top quartile of their high school class, and the mean SAT score for the most recent incoming class was 1090, compared with a Texas mean for college-bound seniors of 978 and a U.S. mean of 1024. The criteria used in admissions differ by institution, but Texas State’s undergraduate admissions standards would be considered by most to be among the ten most selective of Texas’ 37 public four-year colleges and universities.

Institutions used in peer studies vary according to the purpose of the study, so that appropriate peers can be used for different topics. One of the more commonly used national peer groups for research includes the New Mexico State University, Clemson University, University of Oregon, University of Central Florida, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Oklahoma, University of California-Santa Barbara, Arizona State University, and University of Arkansas.

Located midway between Austin and San Antonio, Texas State’s San Marcos Campus is also on the edge of the Balcones Escarpment, where prairies abruptly turn into the Hill Country. The location includes Spring Lake, headwaters of the San Marcos River and one of the oldest inhabited spots in North America. The springs that feed the lake and river are home to eight endangered species and one of the best places in the world to study freshwater aquatic ecosystems and species. San Marcos remains a popular place for modern-day humans. The city has been the fastest or among the fastest growing urban areas in the nation for several years.

The environment provides a natural focus for University faculty and student researchers, but the scope of scientific activity spreads far beyond that. The area’s population growth has been accompanied by mushrooming business and industrial growth. That too, has stimulated, and been stimulated by, research activity on campus. In 2023, the university launched its Run to R1 initiative to achieve Research-1 Carnegie classification, and the university remains well on track to attain R1 status by its goal of 2027. Texas State has more than tripled its research expenditures over the past decade, exceeding $165 million in fiscal year 2024. Texas voters supported the university’s work by passing a constitutional amendment in 2023 to create the Texas University Fund (TUF). The $4 billion endowment is shared by four schools, with revenue designated to enhance their research profiles. Texas State receives $22.5 million annually from TUF and has qualified for $45 million when the legislature adds to the TUF corpus.

Those 17 original faculty members from 125 years ago would barely recognize what the world, and Texas, have become. But they would find that their drive to serve the educational, intellectual, environmental, business, and industrial needs of Texas still has a home here.

(Last updated May 2025)