university ranking news

5 Austin universities land on U.S. News' 2026 list of best colleges

Go Longhorns.

Photo courtesy of the University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin has stood out as one of the best educational institutions in the country for 2026, according to a new batch of rankings from U.S. News and World Report. Four more Austin-area universities – St. Edward's University, Concordia University, Southwestern University, and Huston-Tillotson University – were also highlighted in the rankings.

U.S. News' prestigious Best Colleges rankings compare nearly 1,700 U.S. colleges and universities annually using 17 metrics that measure "academic quality." Schools are ranked nationally, regionally, and by specialty.

UT Austin continues to reign as Texas' second-best university (outranked only by Rice University in Houston) and it maintained its No. 30 rank nationally for a second consecutive year after previously slipping into No. 32 in 2023. It also ranked No. 7 nationwide in the ranking of Top Public Schools.

UT has a competitive 29 percent acceptance rate, and students pay $11,678 yearly for in-state tuition and fees, according to the school's profile.

This has proven to be a great year for UT in various lists. The university's exceptional graduate business and engineering programs constantly land atop U.S. News' separate rankings of best grad schools, and its alumni reportedly experience notable long-term career success.

Forbes named UT among its top universities for 2025, and the school also earned acclaim on The Princeton Review's "hall of fame" list of the best U.S. colleges for 2026.

Other top Austin-area schools
St. Edward's University claimed the No. 5 spot in U.S. News' regional ranking of the Best Universities in the West for 2026. Concordia University also appeared on the list, ranking 103rd in a tie with National University in San Diego, California.

Southwestern University in Georgetown tied with seven other U.S. universities, including Austin College in Sherman, for the No. 84 spot in U.S. News' 2026 ranking of the best Liberal Arts Colleges.

In the regional rankings of Best Colleges in the West, Austin's Huston-Tillotson University ranked as the 20th on the list for 2026. This historically Black university is also having a successful year: Earlier in September, it received a $150 million donation from the Galveston-based Moody Foundation. According to a press release, it was the largest-ever single donation to any Historically Black College or University (HBCU).

U.S. News' top 10 best colleges in Texas for 2026 are:

No. 1 – Rice University, Houston
No. 2 – University of Texas at Austin
No. 3 – Texas A&M University, College Station
No. 4 – Baylor University, Waco
No. 5 – Southern Methodist University, Dallas
No. 6 – Texas Christian University, Fort Worth
No. 7 – The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson
No. 8 – University of Houston
No. 9 – Texas Tech University, Lubbock
No. 10 – University of St. Thomas, Houston

us news & world report rankings college rankings colleges ut austin university of texas at austin st. edward's university southwestern university concordia university huston-tillotson

Jobs report

Texas ranks among top 10 states to find a job, new report says

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

You have a better chance of landing a job in Texas than in most other states.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

job market texas wallethub jobs

university ranking news

5 Austin universities land on U.S. News' 2026 list of best colleges

Jobs report

Texas ranks among top 10 states to find a job, new report says

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