Students interested in nursing will soon have new science labs at Collin College Plano Campus thanks to a new $2 million grant.
In a written statement Thursday, Collin College President Neil Matkin thanked the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration for the grant, adding that Plano’s expansion is “just the beginning.”
“We currently serve more than 3,000 future health professionals each year, and our hospital partners rely on our graduates,” Matkin wrote. “We cannot produce enough without these types of investments.”
The grant will fund a project to convert classrooms at the campus to science labs so the school can expand health sciences programs, according to a news release.
“We estimate more than 4,000 students will graduate from these expanded programs over the first 10 years of operation,” Jay Corwin, Collin College’s senior vice president of student and community engagement, said in a statement.
Last year and in 2022, the college’s leadership met with hospital executives in Collin County to “identify the most significant workforce gaps and determine strategies to enhance the talent pipeline through guaranteed employment,” Corwin wrote.
“Partner feedback was consistent across the board, emphasizing nursing and other frontline healthcare professions in high demand,” he added.
The new labs at the Plano campus will be used for instruction and training licensed vocational nurses, certified nurse’s aides, patient care technicians, electrocardiograph technicians and phlebotomy technicians, according to Corwin’s statement.
The labs are expected to be open for students as early as the fall 2025 semester, college officials said.
Mark Smith, provost of Collin College McKinney Campus, said the renovations will allow the college to expand programs that will help close gaps and staffing challenges in North Texas’ health care industry.
Most of the administrative staff for the college’s health sciences programs are based out of the McKinney Campus.
“We had already been exploring renovations at our Plano Campus and wanted to include some additional health science programs at that location,” Smith said. “This grant opportunity came up and it fit perfectly into what we were trying to do.”
