The School of Nursing has expanded quickly over the years. The first Nursing classes at Texas Tech were part of a the Continuing Nursing Education Program, which began in 1979. Then in the Fall of 1981, the first students with no prior nursing education were admitted into Tech's baccalaureate nursing degree program at the Lubbock Health Sciences Campus. This program is the only BA nursing program in Texas where students receive immediate nursing instruction in clinical areas. In the Fall of 1985 the program expanded to a second campus in the Permian Basin. The rapid growth then continued to expand in the level of nursing education that could be achieved at Texas Tech. In 1988 a graduate program was began. Then in 1992 in collaboration with the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio a doctoral program also began.

By 1998, the School of Nursing boasted forty plus nursing faculty who were involved in clinical practice as well as teaching duties, programmatic level research activities, and over 500 hundred students at all levels of education. Starting in 1999, Texas Tech University School of Nursing staff began working at the Larry Combest Community Health and Wellness Center in East Lubbock to help serve an area deficient in medical care. In 2006, the non-profit center opened a new and larger facility to continue its work in serving the community, and it is still staffed by Texas Tech University School of Nursing staff.