$2 million grant fuels push for more nurses, hospital workers through Collin College programs

Students interested in nursing will soon have new science labs 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. Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration for the grant, adding that the Plano 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 can't produce enough without these kinds of investments.”

The grant will fund a project to convert classrooms on campus into science labs so the school can expand health science programs, according to a news release.

“We estimate that 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 for student and community engagement, said in a statement.

Last year and in 2022, college leadership met with hospital leaders in Collin County to “identify the most critical workforce gaps and determine strategies to improve the talent pipeline through guaranteed employment,” Corwin wrote. .

“Partner feedback was consistent across the board, highlighting 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 of licensed vocational nurses, certified nursing assistants, patient care technicians, electrocardiograph technicians and phlebotomy technicians, according to Corwin's statement.

The labs are expected to be open to students as early as the fall 2025 semester, college officials said.

Mark Smith, Collin College McKinney Campus professor, said the renovations will allow the college to expand programs that will help close gaps and staffing challenges in the North Texas health care industry.

Most of the administrative staff for the college's health science programs are based off the McKinney campus.

“We had already explored renovations to our Plano campus and wanted to incorporate some additional health science programs at that location,” Smith said. “This grant opportunity presented itself and fit perfectly with what we were trying to do.”