Website names UHV one of best online colleges in Texas
The national Guide to Online Schools website recently included the University of Houston-Victoria as one of the best online colleges in Texas because of the university’s accreditation, affordability and alumni success.
UHV was ranked 17th out of the 25 universities in the website’s 2019 Best Online Colleges in Texas list. To be included in the list, schools had to have at least one fully online degree program and be regionally accredited. The rankings also considered tuition, whether a school was nonprofit or for-profit and alumni median salaries.
“The primary purpose of UHV is to offer a quality, affordable education,” UHV President Bob Glenn said. “UHV’s online programs are excellent options for students that allow flexibility and convenience while still providing a strong education. I am pleased to see the university receive this acknowledgement.”
UHV is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools-Commission on Colleges. In addition, the UHV School of Business Administration is accredited by AACSB International-The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, which only accredits 5 percent of business schools in the world. The UHV School of Education, Health Professions & Human Development also has accreditations for various programs, including the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education accreditation for the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program and the Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs for the school’s graduate counseling programs.
In addition to accreditations, UHV is a nonprofit school that offers affordable tuition for its students, Glenn said. UHV’s 2019-2020 undergraduate in-state tuition and fees for a student taking 15 credit-hours a semester is $8,328 a year. The website also used PayScale, a national provider of compensation data, to calculate the median salary of UHV alumni who have at least 10 years of experience in their degree fields. The ranking lists the median salary of UHV alumni as $74,900.
For Thaida Garcia, a Houston UHV student earning her Master of Education in curriculum and instruction with a focus on English as a Second Language, the university’s affordability was a plus, but the real advantage was the convenience of earning her degree online.
“I’ve been a teacher for four years, and I thought getting my master’s degree while working full time would be complicated,” she said. “My classes are all online, so I am able to do classwork in a way that fits my schedule. I and several other students in my classes are working as teachers, and the professors know that, so they make the workload doable while still offering an enriching learning experience.”
Garcia teaches Spanish at Kahla Middle School in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District. Once she receives her degree, she hopes to work with English as a Second Language students.
“The professors are excellent teachers and have been so available when I have questions, even though everything is done online,” she said. “Pretty much everything I’ve been learning in my classes has been applicable to what I’m doing in my classroom as a teacher, and that has helped me be a better teacher and a better student.”
To learn more about UHV’s programs, go to www.uhv.edu/majors-degrees.
The University of Houston-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 80 academic programs in the schools of Arts & Sciences; Business Administration; and Education, Health Professions & Human Development. UHV provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as an instructional site in Katy, Texas, and online classes that students can take from anywhere. UHV supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.
