Prairie View A&M University College of Nursing

Prairie View A&M University's College of Nursing is one of the longest-running Black nursing schools in the United States, with a lineage that stretches back to a 1918 diploma program with five students on the Prairie View campus. The college built its first formal clinical partnership in Houston in 1930 with what was then Jefferson Davis Hospital (today part of Harris Health), launched its baccalaureate program in 1952 under Wilmoth Loper, and phased out the diploma program by 1960 as the BSN became the college's primary focus. In 1982 the college relocated its main academic operation from the rural Prairie View campus into the Texas Medical Center complex in Houston, where it sits today at 6436 Fannin Street.

That address matters. The College of Nursing is embedded in the largest medical center in the world, within walking distance of Houston Methodist Hospital, Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, Texas Children's Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Ben Taub Hospital. The Texas Medical Center co-location means PVAMU nursing students complete clinicals, simulation labs, and externships in the same buildings where some of the country's largest health systems train residents and faculty. A second site, the Northwest Houston Center, hosts the distance LVN-BSN and RN-BSN tracks so that working nurses in northwest Harris County and Cy-Fair can finish the bachelor's degree without commuting into the Medical Center.

Programs run from pre-licensure through doctoral. The undergraduate side includes the traditional (generic) Bachelor of Science in Nursing, an LVN-to-BSN bridge for licensed vocational nurses, and an online RN-to-BSN completion designed for working registered nurses. At the graduate level, the Master of Science in Nursing offers concentrations in Family Nurse Practitioner, Nursing Administration, Nurse Education, and Nursing Practice. The Doctor of Nursing Practice is available for advanced clinical preparation, and post-master's certificates in FNP, Nursing Administration, and Nurse Education let working master's-prepared nurses add a national-certification specialty without re-enrolling in a full degree.

The BSN and MSN programs are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) and approved by the Texas Board of Nursing; the MSN program also carries Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) accreditation. PVAMU was scheduled for a CCNE continuing-accreditation visit on September 29 through October 1, 2025, with an ACEN follow-up visit for the MSN on September 16 and 17, 2025. Both visits are standard re-accreditation cycles, not findings; the public notices invited third-party comment as required by both agencies.

For students choosing where to start, the most concrete outcome metric is the NCLEX-RN first-time pass rate. The Texas Board of Nursing's April 2025 report, which compiles 2024 results for every approved program in the state, lists Prairie View A&M University BSN at 91.30 percent (84 of 92 first-time candidates passed). That is above the 2024 Texas BSN-program state average of 88.45 percent and is competitive against the larger Houston-area programs.

Tuition for the 2025-2026 academic year runs about $11,299 for Texas residents and $26,874 for non-residents in tuition and fees, with a total estimated cost of attendance (housing, food, books, transportation, personal expenses included) of roughly $27,798 in-state and $43,373 out-of-state for students living on campus, per the PVAMU Office of Financial Aid. Ninety-five percent of PVAMU undergraduates receive grant or scholarship aid, with an average award around $9,220; Title III HBCU funding, Texas Grant, and college-specific nursing scholarships are layered with federal Pell and Direct Loans.

Application timing for the BSN tracks follows the College of Nursing's own calendar rather than the general university calendar: March 1 for fall admission and September 1 for spring admission, with completed application, transcripts, prerequisite coursework, HESI or TEAS scores, and (for LVN-BSN/RN-BSN) current Texas licensure submitted to the College of Nursing Office of Admissions and Student Services in Houston. Pre-nursing students complete their prerequisites either on the main campus in Prairie View (with advising in J.B. Coleman Library, Suite 306K) or at a community college, then apply into the upper-division clinical sequence at the Houston site. Graduate applicants file through the central Graduate School (gradadmissions@pvamu.edu) and then through the College of Nursing for program-specific review.

The contact points for prospective students are the College of Nursing main line at (713) 797-7000 and the general inbox HNursing@pvamu.edu. Latisha Darden, the BSN admissions counselor, is reachable at (713) 797-7019 or lcdarden@pvamu.edu, and Dr. Antonea' Jackson is listed as Director of BSN Programs. Toll-free, the college can be reached at 1-877-797-9600. The full program site is at pvamu.edu/nursing.

For Black students weighing PVAMU, the case is straightforward: a more than century-old HBCU nursing program, a Texas Medical Center address that opens the door to clinicals at Houston Methodist, Memorial Hermann, Texas Children's, MD Anderson, and Harris Health, NCLEX outcomes above the state BSN average, CCNE and ACEN accreditation, and a tuition sticker that is roughly a third of what the private Houston-area BSN programs charge in-state. The college also runs distance LVN-BSN and RN-BSN options for already-working nurses, which is where a large share of Black Texan RN-to-BSN completers continue to be educated.