page_title: Round Rock, Texas
section_title: Higher education
hierarchical_section_title: Round Rock, Texas / Education / Higher education
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Texas State - Round Rock taken from flower bed.
context_page_description: Round Rock is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, in Williamson County, which is a part of the Greater Austin, Texas metropolitan area. The population was 99,887 at the 2010 census.
  The city straddles both sides of the Balcones Escarpment, a fault line in which the areas roughly east of Interstate 35 are flat and characterized by having black, fertile soils of the Blackland Prairie, and the west side of the Escarpment which consists mostly of hilly, karst-like terrain with little topsoil and higher elevations and which is part of the Texas Hill Country. Located about 20 miles north of downtown Austin, Round Rock shares a common border with Austin at Texas State Highway 45.
  In August 2008, Money magazine named Round Rock as the seventh-best American small city in which to live. Round Rock was the only Texas city to make the Top 10. In a CNN article dated July 1, 2009, Round Rock was listed as the second-fastest-growing city in the country, with a population growth of 8.2% in the preceding year.
  According to the 2008 ratings from the Texas Education Agency, the Round Rock Independent School District ranks among the best in the state.
context_section_description: Round Rock also has a number of higher education opportunities. In 1990, the city, under the leadership of then-City Manager Bob Bennett, planning director Joe Vining, and local citizen Mike Swayze envisioned and oversaw creation of the Texas State University Round Rock Campus (a/k/a Round Rock Higher Education Center - "RRHEC"). The concept was envisioned as a way to lure colleges and universities to jointly provide education, training and degree opportunities on a part-time and full-time bases. The RRC used various empty facilities around town and many of the initial training programs were targeted to help educate students for work at local companies, such as Dell, which had specialized needs. In 2008, an educational campus and the first RRC building—the Avery Building—was opened through the combined efforts of Texas State University, Austin Community College, and Temple College in order to provide a broader range of educational opportunities, specialized training, and varying degree programs including post graduate degrees. The campus is in the heart of the emerging Avery Center development which houses Seton Williamson, the A&M Health Science Center and other medical campuses. By the end of 2009 1,700 students were enrolled in the programs. Texas State University has taken on the lead role in this effort and 100 acres (40 ha) of land for the facility and additional buildings was donated by the Avery family of Round Rock, whose family were early settlers on the land surrounding the RRHEC. Construction on the second Texas State campus building is underway and construction is nearly complete on this additional classroom building. (See also Texas State University Round Rock Campus)
  The city is also home to the Texas A&M Health Science Center Round Rock which opened its doors December 2010. The campus is designed to eventually accommodate as many as 17 additional buildings over time as monies are appropriated each biennium by the Texas Legislature.
  In August 2010, Austin Community College's largest campus to date opened adjacent to the Texas State University center. ACC is constructing five additional buildings with a total of 250,000 square feet (23,000 m²) to accommodate up to 5,000 students in its first phase. All three campuses are adjacent to each other within the burgeoning Avery Farms development.
  The newest component of higher education is the School of Nursing at Texas State University, housed within the University's College of Health Professions. Other programs offered by the college are health information management, health services research, and physical therapy.
caption: The Avery Building on the Round Campus of Texas State University
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