During World War II, due to wartime mobilization, enrollment dwindled, with the number of graduates halved between 1943 and 1945.

A major improvement came in 1948 when the city of Brownsville acquired the lands formerly comprising the decommissioned army base known as Fort Brown, which had been closed in 1946.

In the 1960s, despite the declining competitive situation of the sports programs, the college gained the Rancho Del Cielo research center, located 300 miles south of Brownsville, in Mexico.

This was the origin of the entity known as Pan American University at Brownsville, which worked independently from Texas Southmost College.

[5] On August 31, 2015, UTB was officially dissolved and UTPA's name was changed to The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.