At the Sun City Ed Tech Conference in September, 2025, I had the opportunity to chat with two folks from Southwest University. The person who spoke the most was Ruby Ramirez , Admissions Advisor. It was an enlightening chat especially for those thinking of getting a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or certifications needed in a variety of fields. Below, you’ll find a link to the audio, and an AI-processed transcript appears below.

Listen to Audio

(hosted via Google Drive)

Interview Transcript: Southwest University

Location: El Paso, Sun City
Participants:

• Miguel Guhlin – Interviewer
• Ruby Ramirez – Southwest University Representative (Graduate, current Bachelor’s student)
• Max Beas – Southwest University Representative (silent participant)
• Learn more about Southwest University:
  • 6101 Montana Ave., El Paso, Tx 79925
  • Office: 915-778-4001
  • Email ruramirez@southwestuniversity.edu
  • www.southwestuniversity.edu

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Miguel: Hey, it’s Miguel Guhlin and I’m here in El Paso at Sun City and I’m chatting with Ruby Ramirez and Max Beas. We’re gonna get clarification from Max on how to pronounce his last name. I know the feeling. Nobody knows how to say my last name either.

So which one of you would like to go first and tell us all about Southwest University? I have to say though just looking at the brochure they have on the table, you know I’ve always thought about pursuing another career at the end of one career, education, and now I’m looking into different ones and they’ve got all sorts of stuff like welding and culinary arts, applied science and diesel technology. This sounds like the stuff that will keep you employed even in the Gen-AI revolution. So what do you all think? Who would like to go first?

Ruby: Hello, my name is Ruby. Thank you for taking the time to hear us out. We’re a local university here in El Paso. We’ve been in business for 25 years. We do have associates, bachelors, and graduate programs. Our associates are from 12 to about 18 months, bachelors 36 months, and a masters of two years. We are very accelerated. That means that every term is six weeks. So every six weeks, the student gets a new schedule with their new courses.

As part of the tuition, we include all the books. Most of them are electronic. We also include an electronic device such as an iPad or a laptop depending on the program that you’re in. We help with scholarship, financial aid, extraship, and job placement.

Miguel: So you all are a big deal. I believe it. So when you’re thinking about, let’s say I’m thinking about getting started, how old do I need to be to begin a program like this? I mean is this something that’s open to somebody’s fresh out of high school and maybe traditional college? Well, how traditional are y’all? Are any of the courses available online? Give us all that back.

Ruby: Yes. So like I mentioned, every six weeks you get about three, four, five courses depending on the program. It’s hybrid. We have online classes. We give you the resources to be successful. Tutoring is always available but most of the books are electronic. They’re gonna be on the portal.

So we have this, it’s called SU Learning where all the students do the assignments there, exams, discussion questions, finals. But yeah we have a library that is for the students to go and take advantage of the computers, the printer, or instructors there that give tutoring. But it’s very hands-on as well.

Depending on the program that you’re in but like in the medical field we do invest a lot in our medical equipment. Everything that you use is hospital graded. We do have contracts and connections all around El Paso. When we send our students, actually the sites are the first ones to request our students because they know that’s how good they are because they know the kind of students that we send them.

I’m a graduate from here but I’m actually returning and I’m almost done with my bachelor’s in business. That’s how much I love it and I believe in Southwest University. Our graduations are held here at the baseball stadium, Southwest University Park where the Chihuahuas play.

Miguel: Have you ever seen the stadium?

Ruby: Well I’ll show you some pictures but it’s a very nice stadium and it’s like a nice ceremony, fireworks like if it’s 4th of July.

Miguel: That was one of the questions I had was so you mentioned that you’ve got partnerships with folks in the community. How many graduates I guess have you successfully placed and I didn’t read your brochure closely enough to see when you were established and all that but let me pass this back to you.

Ruby: Well to get you more of an accurate number I can honestly reach out to the job placement director. He’ll give us all that information but I know for a fact that for nursing like a hundred percent because nurses are always essential and they know our nurses are ready. The global acceptance for our internship students are more of the 82% on the global. Well nursing are the hundred percent but on the global of all the programs that we offer it’s higher than the 82%.

So yes you see we have College of Allied Health, College of Imaging Sciences, College of Nursing, College of Business, College of Trade Technology, College of Culinary Arts and now we’re offering for graduate programs.

Miguel: Do you have to live here in El Paso?

Ruby: No I mean if you do the graduate you don’t have to live here because it’s fully online at your own time and at your own pace but for the other programs some are hybrid so you do have to go to class in person.

Miguel: Are there any that are 100% online?

Ruby: Just the graduate.

Miguel: So those are those graduate programs on the back?

Ruby: The back.

Miguel: Okay so if I wanted to I could get to business administration, health care leadership, health care administration and nursing. So what are the requirements for let’s say health care leadership management or health care administration? Where would I go with that degree and how would I get into that program? What would I need to have?

Ruby: Well as long as you have a bachelor’s degree we can review it and yeah okay let me review your GPA as well and then you know just pretty much the goal is to guide you and help you with everything like make it stress-free. But depends what you want to do with those degrees but I do have some friends in these programs they’re almost done but they’re telling me that they were so grateful that they did it and I think I want to continue into my MBA as well. So I want to let you know how that goes.

Miguel: Sounds good. Thank you all so much for your time today and just how many do you know off the top of your head how many folks are enrolled in Southwest University right now?

Ruby: Well we do start classes every six weeks. Last term that was we started classes August 11. We started about like well I know it was like 400 something students every six weeks we start about yeah 200-300.

Miguel: So what’s the average graduating class every year?

Ruby: This term is going to be 800. So we’re actually having a graduation October 17. You’re more than welcome to go at the Southwest University Park but we have about 800 students graduating. We have one graduation every year.

Miguel: Thank you all so much we’ve been chatting with Southwest University’s Ruby Ramirez and Max Beas. Okay thank you all so much.

[End of interview – informal conversation follows]

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