Texas Tech dental school in El Paso to get $20 million from state budget

An additional $20 million in state funding is an indication of lawmakers' dedication to seeing the Woody L. Hunt dental school come to El Paso, its dean said. 

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso will receive the funds, pending approval from Gov. Greg Abbott.

The Texas Legislature approved a $250.7 billion two-year budget May 26, which includes the appropriation for the school.

This is the second time the state has given money to the dental school. Last session, lawmakers set aside $8 million for the Woody L. Hunt School of Dental Medicine, which is scheduled to open in July 2021.

Dr. Richard C. Black, the school's dean, called it "a huge milestone for the legislature to have the kind of confidence they did" in the program.

TTHUSC El Paso first announced its plans to open the school in 2016 and it is on track for the first entering class of 40 students to begin in 2021. Future classes will be 60 students large.

"It really means to the rest of Texas and the accreditation bodies that the legislature sees the school running smoothly," Black said of the budget appropriation.

The dental school, which is still in the accreditation process, will be the first such school for Texas Tech, and the fourth dental school in the state. It's been more than 50 years since a dental school opened in Texas and the only other ones are in San Antonio, Houston and Dallas.

Black expects accreditation to be complete by the end of the year.

The goal of the Woody L. Hunt School of Dental Medicine is to produce dentists who will serve the West Texas and the border region, an area of the state that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has designated as having a dental health professional shortage.

"We are very pleased that our state lawmakers recognized the need to close the gaps of dental health disparities in West Texas," TTUHSC El Paso President Dr. Richard Lange said in a statement.

Because dental school graduates often practice in the same region where they study, the university expects the number of dentists serving West Texas residents to increase significantly once the school opens. The university will also focus its recruitment efforts on students from West Texas and the Texas-Mexico border. 

El Paso currently has a 57% shortage of general dentists compared to the national average, according to the university.

Black points to data from TTUHSC El Paso's nursing school that shows that 90% of its graduates stay in El Paso to practice. And in Texas, he said, 75% of dental school grads stay geographically close to where they train.

The $20 million in state funds will go toward facilities and equipment, Black said, noting that high startup costs for dental schools are the reason why there are only 66 dental schools in the nation.

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The dean said he expects to seek additional funds from the legislature next session.

The Texas Tech University System sought about $92 million in tuition revenue bonds this past session to fund construction of a dental school building as part of a bill to authorize tuition revenue bonds for infrastructure projects at state universities. That bill, however, died in the Senate.

Lawmakers' failure to approve the bill won't affect TTUHSC El Paso's plans, Black said, adding, "if we're awarded the bond (in future legislative sessions) we will build a formal dental school that has all the bells and whistles, and in the meantime we're building a terrific facility that will house the dental school for six to eight years."

That facility is the Medical Sciences Building II, which is currently under construction and will temporarily house the dental school.

The budget is awaiting Gov. Abbott's signature.

Molly Smith may be reached at 546-6413; mksmith@elpasotimes.com; @smithmollyk on Twitter.