Connecting Texas and the World

In 1985, the Texas International Education Consortium (TIEC) was founded with a group of public universities with the mission of fully equipping and professionalizing their international offices to serve international students and scholars, and to attract growth to Texas. TIEC then incorporated the Texas Intensive English Program (TIEP), designed to offer a unique preparatory year program for sponsored international students who would matriculate to TIEC member universities for their full degree programs.

By the early 1990s, TIEP would grow to become a thriving English program that extended beyond prep year students. Simultaneously, TIEC built an expert consulting service model that matched Texas faculty and administrators to international higher education design and curriculum projects. Over the ensuing years, this consulting practice would lead to projects in more than 40 countries around the world.

Through the 2000s, TIEC continued its successful consulting and English programs, and began to manage grant-funded programs focusing on English language teaching. In the 2010s to the present, with the contraction of Intensive English programs throughout the United States, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, TIEC transformed its model to one centered more holistically on membership and a healthy balance of grant and privately-funded projects focused on higher education capacity-building globally, as well as public diplomacy and people-to-people exchange.

TIEC attracts industry leaders and innovators in higher education internationalization, and hosts numerous networking opportunities for its members. TIEC works with faculty as key multipliers across our campuses: faculty expose their students to global ideas and perspectives, and faculty prepare the future workforce with the interest and aptitude to transform global challenges. With the launch of the Texas International Education Fund, TIEC has institutionalized an investment in virtual exchange and high impact models of internationalization.

TIEC’s focus on membership ensures that we continually grow and evolve. TIEC membership includes public and private two- and four-year institutions in Texas, and affiliate members made up of universities across six continents. TIEC’s Preferred Partner program is a driving force of collaboration across our industry and ensures we continually make activated, purposeful partnerships focused on solving the world’s most pressing challenges.