Prairie View A&M University was founded in 1876 and is the second-oldest public institution of higher education in Texas. With an established reputation for producing engineers, corporate leaders, nurses and educators, the historically black college offers a variety of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs through eight colleges and schools. A member of The Texas A&M University System, the University is dedicated to fulfilling its land-grant mission of achieving excellence in teaching, research and service. During the university’s 140-year history, more than 65,000 academic degrees have been awarded.
The original Office of Civil Rights Texas Plan, assigned PVAMU the responsibility for satisfying higher education needs of the citizens of Texas, especially in the Northwest Houston Corridor. A demand for graduate and certification courses led to PVAMU establishing a presence in the Northwest Houston area in the late 1980. All courses offered were in partnerships with school districts in the area and were held on designated school campuses. In the early 1990s, PVAMU centralized all course offerings in the N.W. Houston area by leasing 20,000 square feet of contiguous space from Compaq Computer Corporation, Inc. (20525 SH 249 – Suite 150, Houston, TX) to be used for classroom and office space. In 1998 PVAMU relocated all course offering to 16800 Stuebner Airline Road, Spring, TX thus establishing the N.W. Houston Academic Center. In 2000, approval was obtained from the appropriate regulatory and accrediting agencies to offer the Master of Education in Educational Administration degree and the Master of Arts in Counseling degree.
In 2009, PVAMU purchased, from Lone Star Community College, the current facility located at 9449 Grant Road north of Willowbrook Mall. This two-story building, near Tomball Parkway and FM 1960, has 52,000 square feet of classroom, meeting and student service space. The Northwest Houston Center is a fully functional extension of the PVAMU main campus
