This month marks one year for the University of Texas at San Antonio and UT Health San Antonio as a single institution. University leaders say the merger has boosted student applications, student enrollment and overall institutional growth.
The university’s enrollment this fall increased by nearly 5% from more than 42,000 students enrolled in the combined institutions in the fall of 2025 to more than 44,000.
“Merger and integration has been a tangible benefit to our enrollment strategy,” said UT San Antonio President Taylor Eighmy. “We’ve actually seen an uptick in applications at the undergraduate campus that are reflective of this increased interest.”
The university had more than 54,867 student applications this fall, up from 47,350 applications for the fall of 2025, according to the UT San Antonio Office of Institutional Research and Analysis.
A large portion of the enrollment increase this year was driven by first-year students, with more than 7,000 starting their UT San Antonio experience this fall.
The merger of the two San Antonio institutions was a long-awaited proposition that the UT Board of Regents had considered for more than 15 years.
It wasn’t until late August of 2024 that the board finally instructed the two institutions to move on with the merger. Eighmy recalls that day as the first time he witnessed what the prospect of earning a degree from a larger university meant for his students.
After the board’s merger approval, Eighmy had a busy day dealing with media interviews, he said, but had been scheduled to greet the incoming freshman class into the Honors College. So he took a break from interviews to meet the students who had just found out about the merger.
“I went into this room and it had like 400 honors kids in it. They were all very energized,” he said. “I went up on the stage in front of them and they practically gave me a standing ovation … they all understood implicitly that the value of their degree in 10 years would be significantly greater than if we had not merged.”
“That sentiment has been very obvious to me in all of my conversations with students,” he added.
The merger became official on Sept. 1, 2025. That fall, UT San Antonio reported having 38,223 students enrolled, while UT Health San Antonio reported 3,817 students, according to data by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
A year of firsts
The merged institution earned it’s final accreditation in June, with the Commission on Colleges and Universities affirming the newly-merged institution’s accreditation.
Through the merger, UT San Antonio became the third-largest public research institution in Texas, with an annual research portfolio of $521 million, ranking among the top 2.3% of U.S. institutions to receive funding from the National Institutes of Health.
It also became one of 13 Universities in the U.S. to hold three Carnegie designations for research excellence, community engagement and student social mobility.
Their combined enrollment was an immediate source of pride to university leaders, who were starting a year of many firsts. Part of those firsts included the launch of the College of AI, Cyber and Computing, the expansion of the Downtown Campus with the opening of San Pedro II — where this new college is located — and the opening of the Center for Brain Health in the South Texas Medical Center.
This fall, the university’s downtown footprint is the largest it’s ever been with the Southwest Campus, the Downtown Campus expansion to St. Pedro I and II, One Riverwalk Place and the Institute of Texan Cultures, or ITC.
The College of Education and Human Development was also moved to the Downtown Campus. This fall, university leaders announced having more than 8,000 students linked to programs offered downtown.
“We are going to be coming forward with some additional things that will be impacting downtown,” Eighmy said. “We’re still working with the city on the possibility of where we’re going to locate the new home of the ITC. And we’re expecting to probably co-locate at that new home our intended new College of Hospitality and Event Management.”
The merger has also called for the need to revisit the master plan for the university’s overall growth, Eighmy said. The new master plan will include the longterm vision for the university’s academic campus, also known as the main campus, and the health campus, also known as the UT Health campus.
It will also detail plans for the expansion of the university’s downtown footprint, which he sees as an essential part of becoming an anchor institution in San Antonio.
“The core role of an anchor institution is about being embedded in the downtown fabric and helping to shape the future of the city,” Eighmy said. “It is one of the most important purposes that we have as a public-serving institution.”
The promise of value and access
News of a newly merged institution in San Antonio also came in a time when more out-of-state universities have turned to Texas to recruit its students. About 20 years ago, maybe 20-30 out-of-state universities would recruit in the area, Eighmy said, that has dramatically increased.
“Hundreds of universities come here now and you can see who’s coming here on the billboards when you are driving down I-10 or I-35,” Eighmy said. “What’s interesting though is that the value proposition that we have is of great interest to the students here in Texas.”
The value of a UT San Antonio degree is resonating at a greater level with students living nearby. Nearly half of the 40,171 undergraduate students attending UT San Antonio this fall come from Bexar County, according to data provided by the university’s Office of Institutional Research and Analysis.
About a quarter of all undergraduate students come from the 13-county Gulf Coast region and the 28-county South Texas region — which includes the Rio Grande Valley. Only 2% of students are from out of state and another 2% are considered foreign students.
“If you’re from the Valley, your parents don’t want you to go too far away,” Eighmy said. “But if you’re from the Valley, San Antonio is far away enough to make our value proposition very intriguing.”
There are also added avenues to attract and retain first-time and first generation students — as half of all UT San Antonio’s first-time undergrads identify as the first in their families to attend college.
Those avenues include the UT San Antonio’s Bold Promise, a program that covers 100% of tuition for eligible students for up to four years.
Enrollment through this program increased this fall by 7%, with about 4,500 total participating students and nearly 2,100 of them being new students. UT Health Science Center has its first cohort of 165 Bold Promise students this fall.
With added enrollment comes added need for financial aid assistance. This year the university reported an increase of $8 million in financial aid awards, supporting an additional 1,500 students.
For Eighmy this first year is a tangible example of the university maintaining a focus on access, without sacrificing the quality of a degree offering.
“Even though we’re focusing on excellence going forward and becoming a top-20 public research university, we’re not giving up in any way on our focus on access,” Eighmy said. “We are not about exclusivity. We are all in on access, opportunity, and that education is the most important difference maker in life.”
The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
