Education - Education & Child Care

Whether you’re moving to Houston with children or just planning to raise a family here in the future, you may be concerned about the city’s education and child-­care offerings. Rest assured: Houstonians place a high value on education and child care. No matter how unique your child’s learning needs are, you’ll almost certainly find an appropriate school or child-­care facility here. Between the more than two dozen school districts, 300 private schools, and 1,500 licensed day-­care facilities that serve the area, Houston is home to many excellent learning environments. Here you’ll find schools that cater to just about every demographic and neighborhood. Read on to learn about the city’s public-­school, private-­school, preschool, and day-­care offerings.

Education - Higher Education

No matter what you want to study or where you are in your life, Houston is a great place to continue your education. Close to a dozen colleges and universities, three major community college systems, and several nationwide technical institutes and distance-­learning universities have campuses here.

With some of the world’s leading hospitals located in Houston’s Texas Medical Center, many of these colleges and universities offer students an unrivaled opportunity to study medicine. Two medical schools—Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston—are located in the Texas Medical Center, as is Prairie View A&M College of Nursing. Plenty of other professional, graduate, and associate’s degree programs in the health sciences are available through the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, the Texas A&M Institute of Biosciences and Technology, and local community colleges.

There are also plenty of opportunities to work on a law degree or an M.B.A. in Houston. In addition to the business programs at the large universities here, Houston is home to satellite M.B.A. programs affiliated with Tulane University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Two of the city’s universities have their own law school, and a third university—South Texas College of Law—is a law school unto itself.

Overview

Houston educates far more than doctors, nurses, lawyers, pharmacy technicians, and physician’s assistants. Here you’ll find higher-­education institutions that educate college students, older adults, and recent high school graduates or GED recipients pursuing associate’s degrees and future doctors and medical practitioners, aspiring lawyers and M.B.A.s, established professionals seeking continuing education credits, as well as curious adults who just want to learn something new. Those seeking a Christian education also have two options in Houston.

Many institutions of higher education here offer night classes and special programs geared toward students who work full-­time and have families. The city’s colleges and universities also cater to students of all financial backgrounds and offer a good deal of financial aid. A few of the universities here are pricey private schools, but many are public schools, with low tuition rates for students from Texas and still-­reasonable prices for those who come here from elsewhere in the country or the world. Unless indicated otherwise, tuition prices listed in this chapter are based on 2011–2012 rates.

Here you’ll find a rundown of colleges and universities in Houston—including medical, law, and business schools—followed by community colleges. Several national technical colleges and distance-­learning programs such as the University of Phoenix and ITT Technical Institute have campuses in Houston. These campuses can be found by doing a search online.