Galveston County is home to the following four Colleges: College of the Mainland, Galveston College, Texas A&M University - Galveston, and University of Texas Medical Branch.

Galveston College (GC) was inaugurated on September 1967 and occupied Moody Hall, a refurbished orphanage as its campus facility. The college enrollment in 1970 had grown from 730 to 1,245. Today, Gc serves approximately 2,400 students each semester in credit programs and nearly 8,000 individuals annually in continuing education. This college Associate Degree is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The school has a full-time staff and faculty of over 150 employees and nearly 90 reserve faculty members. It offers course in the following programs: Accouting, Accounting-Para Professional, Biotechnology, Computer Science Technology, Microcomputer Applications & Networking, Micro-computer networking certificate, Criminal Justice, Culinary/Hospitality Management, Culinary Arts, Nursing-Vocational, Office Assistant, Medical Secretary, Phlebotomy Technology, Nuclear Medicine Technology, and Radiation Therapy Technology.

Texas A&M University (TAMUG) engineering programs are listed as being among the top 50 in the United States according to Time Magazine. Approximately, 1,400 students are from 49 different states and the District of Columbia. Science and engineering majors number 75 percent of the student body; 49 percent are women; about 50 percent reported themselves to have been in the top 20 percent of their high school class. A&M University at Galveston offers ocean-oriented academic programs in transportation, science, engineering, business and liberal arts at the by-the-sea campus. Research and public service, as well as most student activities, involve the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay, which border the Island campus.