Prospective college students in Texas have plenty of colleges and universities to choose from when it comes to applying to college. Within the state of Texas alone, there are hundreds of institutions of higher education that offer bachelor’s degrees. However, within those in-state colleges, there is a special group that belongs to the University of Texas college system.
The University of Texas System (or UT System) is an American government organization in Texas that includes eight public four-year colleges. At least one college in the UT System ranks among the best colleges in the United States, according to a number of expert sources. There is, however, marked variation in the admission rates of the universities that comprise the UT System. At the same time, many of these University of Texas schools offer very affordable tuition costs to students whose permanent residence is in Texas.
In order to find out the easiest colleges to get into in the UT system, BrokeScholar analyzed all the schools in the University of Texas System in terms of their admission rates, based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Read on to find out the easiest colleges to get into in the UT system.
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How Many Schools Are in the UT System?
There are 8 schools in the University of Texas System that offer both undergraduate and graduate education, all of them four-year public institutions. The UT System schools include large public research universities, as well as a couple that have undergraduate populations below 10,000. The average undergraduate population of all 8 schools in the UT System is 22,702. The colleges and universities that make up the UT System include:
- The University of Texas at Arlington
- The University of Texas at Austin
- The University of Texas at Dallas
- The University of Texas at El Paso
- The University of Texas at San Antonio
- The University of Texas at Tyler
- The University of Texas Permian Basin
- The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
The Easiest Colleges to Get Into In the UT System
These 8 colleges have many shared characteristics, including affordable in-state tuition costs. Of course, students who are not residents of Texas, have significantly higher costs of tuition to pay than in-state students.
Below is a table ranked in order of UT System colleges with the highest admission rate to the lowest. Data comes from the NCES and individual college sites:
| College | Percent Admitted | Undergraduate Population | 2023-2024 In-State Tuition and Required Fees | 2023-2024 Out-of-State Tuition and Required Fees |
| The University of Texas at El Paso | 100% | 20,165 | $9,744 | $25,125 |
| The University of Texas Permian Basin | 95% | 4,640 | $9,234 | $21,474 |
| The University of Texas at Tyler | 94% | 6,971 | $9,855 | $25,693 |
| The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley | 88% | 26,434 | $9,538 | $19,333 |
| The University of Texas at San Antonio | 87% | 29,686 | $8,945 | $21,253 |
| The University of Texas at Dallas | 85% | 21,617 | $14,564 | $39,776 |
| The University of Texas at Arlington | 81% | 30,791 | $11,727 | $29,299 |
| The University of Texas at Austin | 31% | 41,309 | $11,698 | $41,070 |
Thus, the easiest college to get into among the schools in the UT System is the University of Texas at El Paso, with an undergraduate acceptance rate of 100%. This is followed by the University of Texas Permian Basin with a 95% admission rate and the University of Texas at Tyler with a 94% admission rate. The hardest college to get into in the University of Texas System is currently the University of Texas at Austin, which has an undergraduate acceptance rate of 31%. Though it has the most selective admission rate, the University of Texas at Austin also has the largest number of undergraduate students.
In terms of graduation rates, the easiest college to get into in the UT System — University of Texas at El Paso — has the third-lowest graduation rate at 47%, which is two percentage points higher than last year's iteration of this study. Meanwhile, the toughest UT System school to get into — University of Texas at Austin — has a graduation rate of 88%, followed by the University of Texas at Dallas’s 70%.
| College | Graduation Rate | Percent Admitted |
| The University of Texas at Austin | 88% | 31% |
| The University of Texas at Dallas | 70% | 85% |
| The University of Texas at San Antonio | 54% | 87% |
| The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley | 53% | 88% |
| The University of Texas at Arlington | 53% | 81% |
| The University of Texas at El Paso | 47% | 100% |
| The University of Texas at Tyler | 44% | 94% |
| The University of Texas Permian Basin | 40% | 95% |
The Bottom Line on the Easiest Colleges to Get Into in the UT System
Seven out of eight schools that comprise the University of Texas System have admission rates of 65% or higher. The easiest colleges to get into in the UT System have undergraduate acceptance rates of 90% or more. Thus, though the University of Texas at El Paso is the easiest college to get into in the UT System, five universities in the system have acceptance rates of 90% or more.
Naturally, when you're trying to decide on the college that's right for you, considerations such as cost of tuition must be included. For Texas residents, the costs of tuition and required fees at most UT system schools are comparable and affordable. For out-of-state applicants, however, the costs of tuition can increase dramatically. Fortunately, for out-of-state students, all universities in the UT System typically charge less than $40,000 per year from non-Texas resident students. Fortunately, BrokeScholar has a vast library of scholarships and student discounts to help bring down the financial burden on students, whether they are in-state or out-of-state students.
