St. Mary's University

“Texas's oldest Catholic university — a Marianist, Hispanic-Serving residential campus blending values-driven liberal arts with engineering, business, and law.”

St. Mary's University is the oldest Catholic university in Texas and the American Southwest, founded in 1852 by the Society of Mary (Marianists) as a small boys' school in downtown San Antonio. Today it is a residential, mid-sized regional university of roughly 3,500 students set on a 135-acre campus on the city's West Side, with a clear identity built around three pillars: Catholic Marianist values, academic rigor in business, engineering, and law, and a deep commitment to Latino and first-generation students. Federally designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, more than half of St. Mary's undergraduates identify as Hispanic or Latino and a large share are the first in their family to attend college, which shapes the texture of student life, mentorship, and outcomes. Academically, St. Mary's is organized into four divisions: the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; the School of Science, Engineering and Technology (home to ABET-accredited electrical and industrial engineering); the Greehey School of Business (AACSB-accredited, in the top 7% of business schools globally); and the School of Law, the oldest Catholic law school in the Southwest, which sits on the same campus and produces a distinctive undergraduate-to-JD pipeline. U.S. News ranks St. Mary's #13 among Regional Universities West and #1 in Best Value Schools (West) for 2026, the seventh consecutive year it has led San Antonio in social mobility — a strong signal for international students looking for a high-touch, outcomes-focused education at a price point well below national private-research peers. Student life centers on a leafy, tree-lined campus organized around residential halls, the Marianist student community, and Rattler Athletics (NCAA Division II, Lone Star Conference). Long-standing traditions include the Fiesta Oyster Bake — held since 1916 during San Antonio's citywide Fiesta — and a strong service-learning culture that connects students to the surrounding city. San Antonio itself is the seventh-largest US city, deeply bilingual and bicultural, with an emerging tech, cybersecurity, and biomedical economy and a low cost of living that international students often find more livable than coastal alternatives.