The Universidad Autónoma de Occidente ("Autonomous University of the West" or UAdeO) is a public institution of higher education in the state of Sinaloa.

That year, the CESO agreed to propose to the SEP the name Universidad de Occidente.

In 1980, work began to restructure the CESO along university lines under the leadership of Dr. Julio Ibarra Urrea, who had previously been the rector of the Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa in the mid-1960s when it obtained its autonomy.

[1] In 1992, after years of planning and a change of location from Culiacán, XEUDO-AM 820, the university's radio station, signed on for the first time; it would move to FM in 2011.

On January 25, 2018, Sinaloa's state legislature unanimously approved a new organic law that gave the university autonomy and consequently changed its name to Universidad Autónoma de Occidente.