What has been going on in McAllen over the last few years is quietly amazing. One of Texas’s least-served areas, where a community college was located, was a real force behind statewide health policy. This college was often talked about more for its problems than for its successes. It doesn’t happen often. When it does, you should pay attention.
There is a number that really starts the story: 6,000. That’s how many nursing jobs are expected to be open in the Rio Grande Valley by 2032. That number is very important in a region where getting medical care is already hard to come by because of long wait times at hospitals and the nearest major medical center being hours away. South Texas College wasn’t ready to take that prediction at face value and move on.
Jayson Valerio, who works for the college as a Regional Health Care Liaison, has seen these trends grow for many years. He was a registered nurse and nursing educator for more than twenty years, which gave him a certain kind of clarity. It wasn’t the kind you get from reading reports, but the kind you get from knowing exactly what it looks like when a system is starting to break down. Valerio was one of only 13 leaders chosen from across the state when Texas Governor Greg Abbott put him on the first Texas Health Care Workforce Task Force in 2024. He was the only person in the room from the Rio Grande Valley who spoke.
The task force came up with 18 suggestions. In 2025, four of them were made laws. That’s not a bad conversion rate for a government process that usually leads to suggestions that are quietly thrown out in committee. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission then chose Valerio to be a part of the advisory committee that would actually put those laws into action. This is an important step because policies on paper and policies in practice don’t always match up.
As part of one of the more specific issues the committee is looking into, certified professionals who want to further their education are being asked to repeat courses even though they already have national certification. It does sound like a lot of work, and it is. But this is also the kind of conflict that makes people quietly less likely to want to move up in the company. If you take away enough of those small obstacles, the pipeline will begin to move.
In the meantime, something just as important was happening on the ground in McAllen. With the help of DHR Health and the Texas Workforce Commission, South Texas College started one of the first registered nursing apprenticeship programs in the country. The idea behind the model is simple: during their clinical hours, students get paid $14 an hour instead of working unpaid shifts. But the effects go beyond the paycheck. The traditional way of teaching nursing doesn’t work for students who are often the first in their families to go to college and who can’t afford to stop working while they train. This one does.
The first group of ten nurse apprentices graduated in Edinburg on May 21, 2026. Leaders said it was the first traditional registered nursing apprenticeship in the country that was recognized by the federal government. Whether or not that name stands the test of time, the ceremony itself felt like proof that something real had been built, not just talked about or tried out and then put away.
As I watch this all come together, I get the sense that South Texas College knew something that many larger schools didn’t: that workforce policy and workforce education need to work together. It’s important to write the law. It is important to train the nurses. The key difference between a good idea and a real result is doing both at the same time, in the same place, and with the same level of institutional support. Both were important to the Rio Grande Valley. It looks like it’s finally getting them.
