Monday, October 23, 2023
  Around Campus, Announcements

By News and Internal Communications

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS – OCT. 23, 2023 – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is located in not one, but two of the most wallet-friendly college towns in the country according to WalletHub’s “Best College Towns & Cities in America.”

According to WalletHub, the City of Edinburg ranked No. 1 and Brownsville took the No. 3 spot as the most “wallet-friendly” U.S. college towns in 2023.

“When you combine UTRGV’s affordable price of attendance and the bonus of being located in the country’s most affordable college towns, it is a win-win for our students and communities,” UTRGV President Guy Bailey said. “We strive to be one of the best value schools in the country, as we work toward an increasingly prosperous future for our main campuses in Brownsville and Edinburg.” 

UTRGV, which opened in 2015, has two main campuses in Edinburg and Brownsville. 

Wallethub’s Top 10 “wallet-friendly” college towns list includes:

  1. Edinburg, Texas – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
  2. Brookings, South Dakota – South Dakota State University
  3. Brownsville, Texas – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
  4. Logan, Utah – Utah State University
  5. McAllen, Texas – South Texas College
  6. Nacogdoches, Texas – Stephen F. Austin State University
  7. Oxford, Ohio – Miami University
  8. Rexburg, Idaho – Brigham Young University, Idaho
  9. Killeen, Texas – Texas A&M University, Central Texas
  10. Statesboro, Georgia – Georgia Southern University

To determine the best college towns and cities in America, WalletHub compared the wallet friendliness, social environment and academic and economic opportunities of 415 U.S. cities of various sizes and populations. Wallet friendliness was measured on the cost of higher education, student loan debt per person, housing costs, adjusted cost of living for young people, and more.



ABOUT UTRGV

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.

UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island. UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.