This story is the second in a two-part series examining Texas A&M’s growth in Fort Worth, looking at what job and workforce opportunities the campus could bring to Fort Worth and Tarrant County. Part 1 explored how A&M Law’s rise helped shape the new downtown building.
Texas A&M-Fort Worth’s new Law and Education Building will not open this fall with just one type of student in mind.
The downtown campus’s first academic building, set to open its doors Aug. 5, is expected to serve aspiring lawyers, health sciences students from A&M System member Tarleton State University, working professionals and even undergraduates who may complete Texas A&M coursework in Fort Worth.
So, who is Texas A&M-Fort Worth built to serve?
“I would very specifically say, ‘All of the above,’” said Rachael Capua, vice president for external operations and dean of Tarleton State Fort Worth.
That answer captures the promise — and the challenge — facing Texas A&M-Fort Worth’s downtown campus when it opens in August. City and university leaders have pitched the downtown campus as a place where research, employers and students connect to support Fort Worth’s economy.
The startup year will be smaller than that vision.
The building will open with Texas A&M University School of Law as its anchor, alongside Tarleton State, which will occupy three floors.
Texas A&M decides fall degree offerings for Fort Worth campus, plans future semesters
Tarleton State expects to serve about 150 students in the building during year one, Capua said, with up to 40 faculty and staff members working there.
Its established medical laboratory science program will be in the downtown campus. Newer programs, such as biotechnology and biomedical sciences, will start smaller. Over time, Tarleton State’s presence could grow to about 250 or 300 students in the building, Capua said.
Robert Ahdieh, dean of Texas A&M Law and chief operating officer of Texas A&M-Fort Worth, said that gradual rollout is intentional. The campus will likely begin with a modest number of nonlaw students, then grow in later semesters.
“My guess is that this is going to launch slowly,” Ahdieh said.
Texas A&M-Fort Worth is still testing which group of students will shape the downtown campus, Ahdieh said. Future growth vision could depend on whether demand comes from undergraduates, graduate students, working adults, transfer students or some mix of all four.
A rendering of the Texas A&M-Fort Worth Research and Innovation Building, expected to break ground this summer. (Courtesy | Texas A&M University System)
The Law and Education Building is the first academic facility in a broader downtown campus vision. Long-term plans include a Research and Innovation Building, expected to house research in engineering, aerospace, agriculture, health sciences and emergency response.
One uncertainty is student housing. Current plans do not include university-built student housing, which could matter if the campus draws more undergraduates.
Urban campuses often work differently than traditional ones, Ahdieh said, and student housing is difficult to plan before leaders determine demand.
“As we get to the undergrad, it’ll get more interesting,” he said.
Tarleton lane
For now, Tarleton State’s lane is clearer: health sciences, STEM and workforce training.
Capua said the Fort Worth campus is an A&M System project, with Texas A&M, Texas A&M Law and Tarleton State and other system partners collaborating rather than competing.
Tarleton State’s focus is tied to its Fort Worth history and the building’s downtown location. The university’s Fort Worth presence dates to 1978, when its medical laboratory science program began offering classes on West Myrtle Street.
The program later moved through several Fort Worth locations, including the Richard C. Schaffer Building in the 1990s and the Hickman Building on Camp Bowie Boulevard in 2006.
Now, the Law and Education Building places Tarleton State students closer to the city’s medical district and healthcare partners.
Medical training mannequins lay on hospital beds inside the Skills Lab in the new Interprofessional Education Building at Tarleton State University’s Fort Worth campus on Oct. 22, 2024. (Camilo Diaz | Fort Worth Report)
The downtown expansion is not meant to duplicate Tarleton State’s own Fort Worth campus along Chisholm Trail Parkway. Instead, Capua said, the goal is to place programs where they make the most sense for students, faculty and workforce needs.
One example is Tarleton State’s associate degree in histotechnology, the discipline that helps detect tissue abnormalities to diagnose and treat diseases.
Nearby institutions do not offer an associate degree in the field, Capua said, even though health systems such as Baylor Scott & White Health, Texas Health Resources and JPS Health Network need workers trained for that path.
Medical laboratory science is another example. The program dates to 1978 and enrolls about 40 students per year, Capua said. Its bachelor’s degree follows a 3+1 model, with students completing three years of undergraduate coursework elsewhere before transferring to Tarleton State Fort Worth for a professional year of training.
The health focus reflects workforce pressure.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 22,600 openings each year for clinical laboratory technologies and technicians from 2024 to 2034, largely due to workers leaving the field or retiring. The broader healthcare workforce is expected to see about 1.9 million openings each year because of growth and replacement needs.
Partnerships
Tarleton State’s Office of Extended Education and Workforce Development will be located in the Law and Education Building, where it will focus short-term, noncredit training shaped by employer needs, Capua said. That could include one- or two-day classes on trusts, wills and estate planning, continuing education for real estate professionals.
Tarleton State is also discussing how to work with Texas A&M, the A&M System and Tarrant County College to create an inventory of professional and continuing education offerings, making it easier for local employers to see what training options are available.
“Then we become a true ecosystem builder,” Capua said.
Rachael Capua, dean of Tarleton State Fort Worth, speaks on a panel about design innovations for college buildings at a panel at SMU’s Hughes-Trigg Student Center on April 17, 2025. (Courtesy | Eric Childs)
The role of matching course offerings to employer needs is central to the larger promise that Texas A&M and city leaders have made about the downtown campus.
Fort Worth city leaders approved a financing plan in 2023 to help make the campus a reality.
In April, Fort Worth City Council waived development fees for all phases of campus construction, such as for building permits and temporary street closures. Total building costs for the campus’s first two buildings will exceed $500 million.
Mayor Mattie Parker said a Texas A&M economic analysis estimates the campus could generate about 25,000 jobs and about $3 billion annually for the local economy. The campus is aligned with industries already important to Fort Worth, such as healthcare, aerospace and aviation.
“There’s also this development opportunity surrounding that quadrant of downtown because of the campus,” Parker said.
Brian Newby, managing partner at Cantey Hanger LLP, said the campus’s larger opportunity is to become an innovation hub, research hub and talent incubator for downtown.
“Those folks getting their education in downtown Fort Worth, if they are able to work in downtown Fort Worth, then they’re going to live in downtown Fort Worth, and that is a positive overall for the community,” Newby said.
The challenge will be in turning those promises into visible outcomes. Partnerships will be one way to do that, Ahdieh said.
From left: James Hurley, Tarleton State University president; Robert Ahdieh, Texas A&M-Fort Worth chief operating officer and dean of A&M Law; and Jennifer Cowley, University of Texas at Arlington president, banter during a Candid Conversation event on Aug. 19, 2025, at Tarleton State Fort Worth’s campus. (Mary Abby Goss | Fort Worth Report)
Texas A&M already works with TCC through the community college’s Engineering Academy, where students begin foundational engineering coursework before transferring to College Station. With the new campus, students could eventually complete upper-level engineering coursework in Fort Worth, he said.
Texas A&M has also talked with other local higher education institutions about potential collaboration. Industry partnerships could shape workforce training, student hiring and research-and-development projects, Ahdieh said.
Year 1 success
Capua’s list of measures of success for Tarleton State downtown included enrollment, employer partnerships and workforce outcomes.
More basic than those things, however, may be making sure that the downtown campus can handle students arriving from all over, studying in different ways and with different needs.
That work is less visible than a new building or an economic impact projection, but it may determine whether Texas A&M-Fort Worth can become what its leaders say it should be: a campus flexible enough for students who do not arrive from the same place, study the same way or need the same thing.
For now, Capua said, the first goal is even simpler.
“Our first outcome, and target for success, is getting there and opening,” she said.
Dang Le is the higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at dang.le@fortworthreport.org.
The Fort Worth Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
The Report’s higher education coverage is supported in part by major higher education institutions in Tarrant County, including Tarleton State University, Tarrant County College, Texas A&M-Fort Worth, Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, the University of Texas at Arlington and UNT Health Fort Worth.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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