The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is forging dramatic new directions in higher education. UTEP has become a national model for creating and successfully executing highly competitive academic and research programs while maintaining a deep commitment to serving a 21st century student demographic. It is this dedication to providing access and excellence to students in the region that has resulted in UTEP becoming the only public research university in the United States with a Mexican-American majority student population.
UTEP officially opened in the fall of 1914 and is the second oldest institution in The University of Texas System (www.utsystem.edu). It is a Carnegie high-research-activity, urban university that enrolls more than 25,000 students. It serves its primary constituency — residents of far west Texas, southern New Mexico, and northern Mexico — with 74 undergraduate programs, 76 master’s programs and 22 doctoral degree programs, including a growing portfolio of online degrees. With an 80% Hispanic student population, UTEP proudly reflects the demographic composition of the bi-national region from which it draws the vast majority of its students. Eighty-four percent of students are from El Paso County and 4 percent are Mexican nationals.
