Student Experience

College Colors Day: Texas State has twelve colours, and only three are brand colours

September 4, 2026

On the Friday before Labor Day each year, students and alumni across the United States wear their school colours to class and to work — College Colors Day, which fell on 4 September this year. Texas State marked it by releasing twelve colour chips laid out like a Pantone book. The interesting part: only three of the twelve are brand colours.

The other nine are named after real things around the San Marcos campus — a salamander that lives underground, a wild rice that grows in this stretch of river and nowhere else, the glass floor of a boat, the hardwood at centre court. It is a university saying its colours are more than two swatches in a brand manual.

The three official colours

If you need the exact values for a class shirt, a banner or a slide deck, these are read straight off the university’s own chips:

Maroon

#501214 — the primary colour.

Dark Gold

#AC9155 — the gold that pairs with maroon.

Bright Gold

#D7BD8A — the lighter gold of the old brick.

A mariachi performer in a Texas State maroon charro suit holding a violin — Texas State Maroon #501214 colour chip — Maroon `#501214` on a mariachi charro suit — the gold moño embroidered TEXAS STATE.

A small note: the page you are reading uses exactly #501214 as its base colour. The same maroon, not an approximation.

Twelve chips, twelve real things

The first three are the brand. The other nine are San Marcos.

Texas State Maroon

#501214

The university’s primary colour. Shown on the maroon charro suit of a mariachi performer, with a gold moño embroidered TEXAS STATE.
Texas State Dark Gold

#AC9155

The deeper gold that pairs with maroon on uniforms and the Bobcat head logo.
Texas State Bright Gold

#D7BD8A

The lighter gold — the exact shade of the brick on the older buildings in San Marcos.
Spring Lake Blue

#007096

The blue of Spring Lake — the spring-fed lake on campus, clear enough to see the bottom.
Glass-Bottom Boat

#70B7AA

The teal seen through a glass-bottom boat — something almost no other university has.
Wild Rice Green

#419E69

The green of Texas wild rice — a plant that grows naturally in this stretch of the San Marcos River and nowhere else on earth.
Blind Salamander

#F9DCDE

The pale pink of the Texas blind salamander — an endangered amphibian living in the Edwards Aquifer beneath the city.
River Jump

#BFF3FD

The pale blue of the water — named for graduates leaping into the river in full regalia.
Green Hills

#266725

The green of the Texas Hill Country around the campus — late sun through the cypress trees along the water.
Eat 'Em Up, Peach

#EA664D

The peach of the running track. Named after the university’s cheer, “Eat ’em up!”.
Strahan Center Court

#EBBA45

The gold of the hardwood at centre court in Strahan — where the university plays basketball.
Theatre Rojo

#E32849

The bright red of the theatre’s brick wall on campus.

Graphics published by Texas State University. Colour names and hex values read directly from each chip.

The three strangest names, and why they matter

Blind Salamander #F9DCDE — the Texas blind salamander is an endangered amphibian that spends its whole life in the water-filled caves of the Edwards Aquifer beneath the city. It has no eyes because where it lives has never had light.

Wild Rice Green #419E69 — Texas wild rice grows naturally in this stretch of the San Marcos River and nowhere else on earth. That is why the water running through campus is so closely protected.

River Jump #BFF3FD — the colour of the water, named for graduates who leap into the river still wearing cap and gown.

All three say the same thing: this campus is shaped by the river running through it. Students swim it, paddle it and take field courses on it.

Reading the “26-1899” code: nearly every chip carries 26-1899 where a Pantone number would go. The university does not explain it, but the natural reading is 26 for 2026 and 1899 for the year Texas State was founded. That is our inference, not a university statement.

What College Colors Day means if you are an international student

For American students, wearing school colours is second nature from childhood. For a first-year international student it is often the first day you realise you belong somewhere — one maroon shirt and several thousand people around you are on your side.

That is not trivial. Research on international students converges on the same finding: a sense of belonging is the strongest single predictor of whether a student continues or drops out. Days like this one, along with the teams, clubs and residence halls, are the infrastructure that produces it.

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Record enrollment

47,513 students, 2,222 of them international — read more.

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The 2026 College Colors Day date (4 September) verified at collegecolorsday.com. The twelve colour chips and all images were published by Texas State University; names and hex values are read directly from each chip. The commentary is the International Office’s own.