More higher ed headed to county
Thanks to a couple big wins for higher education bills in the Texas Legislature, Fort Bend County is about to get a lot more offerings, starting with a new Texas State Technical College campus in Rosenberg.
Ground was recently broken on the center, at 5500 Avenue North. It will expand TSTC’s programming in the area as a result of HB 658.
The college already partners with Wharton County Junior College at Fort Bend Technical Center, where it offers HVAC, diesel equipment and precision manufacturing technologies coursework. The new campus will allow TSTC to add industrial systems, welding, computer networking and systems administration, network security, telecommunications technology and commercial truck driving (as a continuing education offering). Wharton provides academic instruction there.
The Rosenberg campus “is the first phase of a three-part building plan that will be known as the Texas State Technical College Fort Bend County campus,” according to a news release from the school. The campus will be expanding to six to eight buildings to support more than 5,000 students.
Meanwhile, HB 100, provided the funding for, among other projects, the University of Houston expansion in Katy and Sugar Land. The cost of the Sugar Land academic building is $54 million, while the budget for building and land acquisition in Katy is $46.8 million. With HB 1982, the university also got a land transfer for 16 acres owned by TxDOT near the university’s existing Sugar Land campus.
“This is a significant achievement, as this measure transfers property valued as high as $10 million to UH without cost and ensures that UH Sugar Land has additional space for growth well into the future. This was by no means an easy piece of legislation to pass, but will have a lasting effect for the future of UH Sugar Land,” the university said in a release.