My son has a friend who is working on a specialized biology degree at MD Anderson. They seem to have a couple such programs and they are not nursing. They have implimented these programs very quietly. I don’t know about future plans but it is the nature of programs to expand and grow.
The UT Health Science Center offers a full array of medically oriented graduate courses besides the medical and dental programs. These programs are well established and could easily be expanded to provide undergrad degrees. The land purchased by UT could easily be built out to provide facilities for these undergrad programs.
Interesting, Garnet Coleman’s quotes in the OP article (Sorry, can’t link the quotes from the article as I’ve reached my limit for the Statesman) vs. his quotes to Duarte don’t seem to mesh:
“I have talked to boosters of the university who have floated that concept,” said Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Democrat who lives five blocks from the University of Houston campus. “In these circumstances, people use the tools that they have, and that’s one of the tools the University of Houston has. All’s fair in love and war.
“They didn’t ask anybody before they came and did that,” Coleman added. “I’ve always said there’s a deal there. A deal could be made. It can be. This is not an impossible thing.”
The all is fair in love and war part is concerning.