Texas Southmost College (TSC) was the first institution of higher education in the region.Established in 1926, it operated first as the Junior College of the Lower Rio Grande Valley and became the first accredited public junior college in Texas. In 1948, the junior college moved to Fort rown, a decommissioned Army installation adjacent to the downtown business district and one block from the Rio Grande.In 1973, Pan American University in Edinburg agreed to staff an extension center on the TSC campus to provide upper-level and graduate coursework for students in the Brownsville area. While this arrangement provided additional career opportunities for students, the number of majors was limited, as was the range of services provided.By 1991, the upper-level center was serving about 1,500 students with a full-time faculty of 33 professors. In order to expand opportunities at the university level for an area that was clearly underserved, the Texas Legislature separated the branch campus from he University of Texas- Pan American and established a new autonomous university named The University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB). ncurrently, the Legislature passed legislation permitting UTB and TSC to enter into a partnership that provides a seamless transition for students as they pursue degrees at the one- and two-year, four-year and graduate levels.UTB/TSC, which has achieved considerable growth since the inception of the partnership, is truly a community university. Its campus has grown to more than 460 acres. It employs more than 375 full-time faculty members and has more than 17,000 students. The university, which receives nearly $6 million in research funding each year, has more than 150 undergraduate programs (certificates and associate and bachelor's degrees) and 23 graduate programs, including a Doctor of Education in Curriculum and Instruction.In addition to its many first-rate educational programs, UTB/TSC is the proud home of the Center for Biomedical Studies, the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and the Rancho del Cielo Field Station.