University News

Univ of Texas at Arlington to open massive second campus in Fort Worth

UTA West campus would eventually serve 10,000 students.

Courtesy rendering

A new university campus is in the works for Dallas-Fort Worth. According to a release, the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) has received the OK from the University of Texas System Board of Regents to purchase 51 acres of property in west Fort Worth — paving the way for UTA West, a new campus that would be built in the Walsh Ranch development.

Advantageously positioned at the intersection of I-30 and I-20 at the western gateway of Fort Worth, the new campus could begin welcoming students as early as fall 2028.

UTA West will be developed as part of a multiyear plan to serve more than 10,000 students.

“Anytime the UT System can expand greater educational opportunity, access, and affordability to Texans, we’re going to do it,” says UT System Board of Regents chairman Kevin Eltife in a satement. “We’ve recently done it in east Texas and south Texas and now we’re heading west. We’re looking forward to planting a UT Arlington flag in west Fort Worth, currently the nation’s fastest growing city.”

"The western part of the metroplex has an ever-growing population, a plethora of student talent, and a wide breadth of opportunity for explosive economic advancement. UTA has long been a top supplier of talent to companies across Fort Worth, and this expansion will allow UTA to broaden its impact across our region,” said UTA President Jennifer Cowley.

Walsh Ranch is the 7,200-acre development in west Fort Worth that calls itself "Fort Worth's next great neighborhood," being developed with neighborhoods, town centers, mixed-use areas, and commercial space.

And now a university campus.

UTA in Fort Worth
The new campus would be only the latest in a decades-long partnership between UTA and the city of Fort Worth. That includes the UTA Research Institute (UTARI), a facility established in east Fort Worth in 1986; and the UTA Fort Worth Center, a continuing education center for the downtown Fort Worth community established in 2007.

In 2023, the UTA Institute of Urban Studies, the principal research center for the College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs, opened at UTA’s Fort Worth Center with a mission is to conduct research and provide technical assistance to city and county governments, governmental agencies, and nonprofit organizations, and to offer education and teaching opportunities to individuals either already in or contemplating public service careers.

The University of Texas at Arlington is a comprehensive teaching, research, and public service institution with an enrollment of approximately 41,000 students, and is the second-largest institution in the UT System. In 2021, its combination of outstanding academics and innovative research contributed to its reaffirmation as a Carnegie R-1 “Very High Research Activity” institution, a significant milestone of excellence. The University is designated as a Hispanic Serving-Institution and an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education and in 2022 earned the Seal of Excelencia for its commitment to accelerating Latino student success.

Jobs report

Texas ranks among 10 best states to find a job, says new report

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

You have a better chance of landing a job in Texas than in most other states.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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