University of Houston’s Sugar Land campus to offer junior-level business courses this fall

The University of Houston at Sugar Land will offer third-year classes from the UH Bauer College of Business starting in the fall. Bauer Dean Paul Pavlou said the decision to expand Bauer classes to the Sugar Land campus was in part because more than 25% of students enrolled at Bauer are from the Fort Bend County area.

“Our mission is to bring affordable education to students in the Houston metro area and beyond,” Pavlou said. “I think it was a no-brainer decision for us to expand and offer programs in [the Sugar Land] region.”

The junior-level classes offered at the Sugar Land campus will consist of eight business core classes all business majors are required to take, said Jay Neal, the UH-Sugar Land associate vice president and chief operating officer.

Offering only the junior-level courses at the Sugar Land campus is part of the university’s 2+1+1 program. In this sequence, students can complete their first two years of core classes at local community colleges, such as Houston Community College or Wharton County Junior College, before transferring to the University of Houston to take junior-level classes at Sugar Land and finishing their senior year, major-specific courses at the main campus.

“We can help those students by taking their third-year courses here,” Neal said. “[Students] that want to start their freshman [and] sophomore year at either HCC or Wharton ... and transfer over, those families can save thousands by going that route.”

Pavlou said he expects there to be about 50 to 60 students enrolled in the program this fall. Depending on demand, he said Bauer may teach more classes at the Sugar Land campus as soon as the spring 2021 semester.

Going forward, Pavlov said he wants to offer graduate-level Bauer courses as well as continuing education for the local business community at the Sugar Land campus.

“We’re very active and proactive in terms of meeting the demand in the rapidly growing areas in the broader Houston metro,” Pavlou said.