Salvador Ochoa, President, Texas A&M University-San Antonio
Salvador Hector Ochoa, president of Texas A&M University-San Antonio, believes the return on investment from a university degree is clear. “Across their lifetime, (students) will earn $1.2 million more by having a degree,” Ochoa told Invest:
What are some of the key takeaways and highlights from the past year?
First, we celebrated our 15th anniversary last May. That’s an important milestone for our institution. In the fall of 2024, we broke the 8,000-student mark. We’ve increased enrollment by nearly 10% over the past two years, serving more students on the south side of San Antonio each year.
There are 11 institutions in the A&M system, and we anticipate that we will one day be the second-largest university in the A&M System. We have that ability because we are on 700 acres of opportunity, and we’ve only developed 100 acres so far.
We’ve also worked hard on expanding our outreach. When we first started, we were serving primarily South San Antonio. While that will always be central to our mission, we’re focused on becoming more of a destination campus and building facilities and programs that will attract students from all over. We currently have students from Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, El Paso, and the Rio Grande Valley, plus 30 states, Puerto Rico, and 24 countries.
Another important milestone that we’re proud of is that we expanded our athletics program to include men’s and women’s basketball. The women’s team was successful and made it to the semifinals of the Red River Athletic Conference Tournament during its inaugural year.
What makes your institution unique in the A&M system?
First of all, within the A&M system, we’re the only university that’s in a large city. All the other A&Ms are in rural areas. That makes us different.
Another factor that makes us unique is the purpose behind our establishment. For a long time, South San Antonio and the Southern Bexar County region were historically underserved. San Antonio’s mass transportation options are limited, so commuting to the other side of town to attend a university could take 45 minutes to an hour. There was a clear need for what we offer in this community, and we’ve been growing our programs to meet those needs ever since. We are designed to serve a unique population, including many students who are veterans or who come from military families.
How are you supporting the community in Greater San Antonio?
One thing that I find impressive in San Antonio is that there’s a real synergy and commitment to higher education.
Let me give you an example. We broke ground in February 2025 on a new athletics complex. Bexar County gave us $10 million to build that. Rather than that facility just being for us, we’re going to share it with the San Antonio community.
We’re building partnerships. We’re leveraging our strengths together rather than working in silos.
How is your institution building bridges with industry and business leaders?
My doors are always open, and I enjoy making connections with industry, business, and community partners across the region. We need to understand that disciplines are changing. One thing that we’re going to be working on is having advisory boards where we bring people from across various industries to engage with our faculty and ask how well we did in preparing students for those disciplines, what we need to do differently, and how we can improve.
One thing that we have here that is special is the May Center for Experiential Learning and Community Engagement. We have so many first-generation students, and many of them need to work. They don’t have the opportunity to be traditional full-time students. The Mays Center places our students with local corporations, allowing them to get early work experience.
That keeps them invested in their degree, and it also gives us feedback about how well we’re preparing our students.
How are you demonstrating ROI for your students and for the broader community?
We’ve recently completed an economic impact study that shows that when our students graduate, they will immediately see annual earnings that are $28,500 higher than a person with a high school diploma in Texas. Across their lifetime, they will earn $1.2 million more by having a degree. We produce 600 graduates every semester, so if you multiply that $1.2 million by 1,200 annual students, the economic impact is huge. If we attract more industry here, that economic impact will be even more profound and exponential.
How are you preparing students for the workforce?
That is critical here.
We need to look at what attracts industry to our region. If people are going to invest in San Antonio, they need to know that we are partnering to strengthen the K-12 pathways and beyond to prepare students for higher education, so that when industry comes here, the workforce is ready for them. We now have early college high schools and dual credit opportunities.
If we’re going to have a greater economic impact, we need to make sure that the students get here and that they do the work. We need to cultivate from high school to higher education and harvest that potential.
