state university system based in Austin, Texas, U.S. Branch campuses are located in Arlington (founded 1895), El Paso (1913), Edinburg (Pan American branch; 1927), Richardson (Dallas branch; 1961), Odessa (Permian Basin branch; 1969), San Antonio (1969), Tyler (1971), and Brownsville (1973). Health science centres are located at Tyler (1947), San Antonio (1969), and Houston (1972); the Medical Branch at Galveston (1881); the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (1941); the Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (1943).

At Austin, the largest campus (founded 1881) in the University of Texas System, about 100 undergraduate degree programs and about 180 graduate degree programs are available in 15 schools and colleges. The master's degree programs in theatre and architecture are especially well regarded. The university awards about 75 doctoral degrees. It also has one of the largest academic library systems in the country (eight million books). More than 85 organized research units are housed on campus, including the Center for Biological and Medical Engineering, the Bureau of Economic Geology, the Institute for Neuroscience, and the Bureau of Business Research. Also on campus are the Texas Memorial Museum of Science and History, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum (with the presidential papers and memorabilia of the 36th U.S. president (Johnson, Lyndon B.)), and the Center for Studies in Texas History. Off-campus facilities include McDonald Observatory (dedicated 1939) on Mount Locke near Fort Davis and the Marine Science Institute (1946) on the Gulf of Mexico at Port Aransas. Enrollment at the Austin campus is almost 50,000, making it one of the largest university campuses in the United States; total enrollment for the system as a whole exceeds 150,000.

Lawmakers of the republic and the state of Texas made several attempts to establish a state university, beginning in 1837. The state constitution of 1876 provided an endowment, and the state legislature in 1881 established a campus at Austin and a medical branch at Galveston. The University of Texas at Austin opened in 1883, and the Medical Branch opened at Galveston in 1891. The tower of the Main Building, a distinguishing feature of the campus, was erected in 1937. In 1966 a student atop the tower shot and killed 16 people and wounded 31 before he himself was killed by a police officer. Oil was discovered on university lands in west Texas in the early 1920s.

Zoologist and cytologist Theophilus Shickel Painter (Painter, Theophilus Shickel) joined the faculty of the University of Texas in 1916 and became president in 1946. Notable alumni and faculty members include Nobel Prize-winning geneticists Joseph L. Goldstein (Goldstein, Joseph L.) and George Davis Snell (Snell, George Davis), astronauts Alan L. Bean (Bean, Alan L.) and Robert Laurel Crippen (Crippen, Robert Laurel), sociologists Charles Wright Mills (Mills, C. Wright) and Kingsley Davis (Davis, Kingsley), inventor George Washington Pierce (Pierce, George Washington), linguist Hans Kurath (Kurath, Hans), political scientist V.O. Key, Jr. (Key, V O, Jr.), ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax (Lomax, Alan), Nobel Prize-winning physician E. Donnall Thomas (Thomas, E. Donnall), and long-jumper Bob Beamon (Beamon, Bob).