2025 Best Optometry Schools in the Southwest Region
3Colleges in the Southwest Region
224Optometry Degrees Awarded
$102,063Avg Early-Career Salary
Optometry isn't the most popular major in the world, but it's not the least popular either. To be more precise it ranks #194 in popularity out of 395 majors in the country. As such, the degree program isn't offered at every college in the United States, but there are schools that do have a program in the field that are top-notch when it comes to quality.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for optometry students pursuing a degree. Combined, these schools handed out 224 degrees in optometry to qualified students.
The optometry program you select can have a big impact on your future. That's why we developed our collection of Best Schools for Optometry rankings. We derive our Best Overall Optometry School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
In order to find the schools that are the best fit for you, you may want to filter to one of the degree levels below.
The optometry school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Optometry Schools in the Southwest Region.
You can also filter this list by location to find schools closer to you.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
Best Schools for Optometry in the Southwest Region
Although we recommend filtering by degree level first, you can view the list below to see which schools give the educational experience for the optometry degree levels they offer.
Every student who is interested in optometry needs to look into University of Houston. UH is a very large public university located in the large city of Houston. A Best Colleges rank of #369 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means UH is a great university overall.
There were about 92 optometry students who graduated with this degree at UH in the most recent data year. Those optometry students who get their degree from University of Houston earn $2,290 more than the standard optometry grad.
University of the Incarnate Word is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a degree in optometry. UIW is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large city of San Antonio. This university ranks 38th out of 115 schools for overall quality in the state of Texas.
There were about 52 optometry students who graduated with this degree at UIW in the most recent year we have data available. Students who graduate with their degree from the optometry program state that they receive average early career wages of $96,994.
It is hard to beat Northeastern State University if you want to pursue a degree in optometry. NSU is a medium-sized public university located in the remote town of Tahlequah. This university ranks 18th out of 31 colleges for overall quality in the state of Oklahoma.
There were about 28 optometry students who graduated with this degree at NSU in the most recent data year. Optometry degree recipients from Northeastern State University get an earnings boost of around $4,035 above the average earnings of optometry graduates.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
The optometry program you select can have a big impact on your future. That's why we developed our collection of Best Schools for Optometry rankings. We derive our Best Overall Optometry School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
