Texas needs more health care workers. Dallas wants to get more of its residents into well-paying jobs.
The University of North Texas at Dallas thinks its new STEM center, which will train students for medical careers, can help solve both problems in southern Dallas. By preparing more local students for high-demand, high-wage jobs, the development marks an investment in southern Dallas’ health care and economic growth, local leaders say.
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The $100 million space, which students will begin taking classes in next month, will offer an accelerated pathway in pharmacy, meaning students can join the workforce faster and cheaper.
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A new dual degree in public health and nursing, in collaboration with UNT Health, could graduate its first class by 2031, laying the groundwork for a labor pool for nearby facilities, such as the Dallas VA Hospital and the UT Southwestern Medical Center at RedBird.
“We’re here to serve our community,” said UNT Dallas President Warren Von Eschenbach.
Warren von Eschenbach (center), president of the University of North Texas at Dallas, and officials cut the ribbon for the STEM building at UNT Dallas, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025.
Chitose Suzuki / Staff Photographer
Health systems across Texas are struggling to find enough workers, from nurses to physician assistants, to care for an aging population. By 2032, North Texas will see an estimated shortage of over 15,000 nurses, according to state data.
State leaders and universities are trying to fill shortages with sweeping investments in health care education and workforce development.
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The need for quality health care is more pronounced in southern Dallas, where residents face higher rates of chronic disease and lower life expectancy compared to the rest of the county. A majority of hospitals and doctors are in the northern half of Dallas, above Interstate 30.
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UNT Dallas’ development comes as local leaders prioritize solving racial disparities in the city’s workforce, particularly in southern Dallas, where the campus is located. Dallas officials want to lift more families out of poverty by getting residents into better-paying jobs.
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For Lynn McBee, Dallas’ workforce czar, the new STEM building represents an investment in “homegrown talent,” an approach she has prioritized since she began leading the city’s job growth efforts in 2022.
UNT Dallas serves more than 3,500 students, 70% of whom are the first in their family to go to college. Around 93% of its current students grew up in Dallas-Fort Worth.
“More people having access to careers that are in high demand, that are sustainable living wages and that they might not have opportunities to otherwise is exciting,” McBee said. “We’ve got to lean on our institutions of higher education to help us fill these workforce shortages.”
The expansion adds 18 classrooms and 12 laboratories to the campus, as well as more faculty and staff offices, and over $1 million in new equipment.
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Samantha Cadena, a junior from Oak Cliff studying biology and chemistry, said the new space means more hands-on training as she applies to physician assistant school.
In lab courses, Cadena and her classmates typically crowd around the school’s few fume hoods. With more hoods in the new building, she can take her time with experiments and projects.
“It really makes me feel seen,” said Cadena, a first-generation student. “It’s another resource that I can utilize to help me get to my finish line.”
After physician assistant school, Cadena wants to return to Oak Cliff. She plans to work in a hospital and help Spanish-speaking patients navigate the health care system.
Local leaders are hoping the university’s expansion builds momentum for the economic growth happening in the historically underserved region.
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At a ceremony this month, state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, who helped establish the university, said he wants the school to grow to 30,000 students and become one of the largest employers in Dallas. Von Eschenbach wants more dorms, a basketball arena and a business school building.
“The future growth in Dallas — a lot of it is going to be centered around UNT Dallas,” said Peter Brodsky, CEO of the Shops at Redbird in southern Dallas.
Multiple developers have planned large-scale projects near the campus that will bring single-family homes, apartments and retail in the next few years.
“You’re getting thousands of people to congregate in one place, and they all get hungry at lunch time,” said Brodsky. “People start to want to live there. There’s so much land around there.”
Down the line, the school’s science programs and hands-on training could provide a pipeline for Dallas’ growing biotechnology and life sciences industry, said McBee, whose background is in biochemistry.
She pointed to Pegasus Park, a life sciences campus with offices and laboratory centers that opened in 2022, and Colossal Biosciences, a biotech startup that employs dozens of geneticists, biologists, AI experts and more to bring extinct animals back to life.
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Students who have research and laboratory experience will have a leg up to fill technician roles, McBee said. A potential partnership between UNT Dallas’ public health or biology programs and its business school could prepare students for marketing and accounting jobs at these biotechnology companies.
“It’s exciting to me to think about what the next iteration could be,” McBee said.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron and Phyllis Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.