Steven Ford used the university’s hybrid $10K Degree Completion Program to finish what he started in 1999.

At nearly 50 years old, Steven Ford had a successful career in firefighting and certainly a passion for it. He didn’t really need the college degree he began – and didn’t finish – at Texas Tech University as the calendar turned to the 2000s. But his desire to complete it flickered for decades.

Through Texas Tech Online’s $10K Degree Completion Program, Steven graduated in May with a Bachelor of Science in Leadership Studies. 

Raised in Lubbock, Steven’s family and extended family are packed with Red Raiders. His dad, Bill Ford, who graduated from Texas Tech with a landscape architecture degree in 1974, owned a landscape business, and his mom, Sandra (Snider) Ford, graduated in home economics education in 1974. Steven is also now the father of two Red Raider daughters – but that’s jumping ahead in his story.

When the economy changed in the 1980s, the Fords eventually ended up in San Antonio, and Steven graduated from high school in Boerne. He enrolled at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), but he wasn’t exactly ready for higher ed until he switched to San Antonio College to finish up some core courses. He also took an architecture course, which he says “came easy” to him, having observed his dad’s background in landscape architecture. After some conversation with his dad, they decided landscape might be a good path for Steven. With his parental influence and background in Lubbock, it was inevitable he would choose to go “home” to Texas Tech for that degree.

“I walked through the landscape architecture building, and they still had one of my dad’s projects on the wall from way back in the 1970s, so it was pretty neat to be able to see that,” Steven said. “So, I was off and running and started landscape architecture, made Dean’s list, just doing really well and found my niche. I had some friends that were already in landscape architecture, so it was the right place, right time. Everything was just fantastic.”

Steven recalled a 2001 collaboration where the architects, interior designers and landscape architects came together for a big project. That is where he met his ex-wife –the girls’ mother – Sarah (Sanson) Ford. That spring they found out they were expecting a daughter. Sarah was graduating, and Steven had 18 hours left in the landscape program.

At the time, he wanted to try to graduate quickly so they could have the baby and start their life. After a brief series of snags, though, Steven chose to leave the university and work to support his new family. 

That first child was Kylee, who is now a senior at Texas Tech, expected to graduate in December with her Bachelor of Science in Nutritional Science and Dietetics from the College of Health & Human Sciences. She was followed by sister Kendall, who was born three years later. Kendall will be in her second year at Texas Tech in the fall, pursuing Pre-Occupational Therapy, also through the College of Health & Human Sciences.

Early on, when Steven and Sarah were still married, they were friends with the couple next door; the husband was a firefighter. He kept bugging Steven to become one as well. Eventually, despite Steven’s protests of being too old (30), having bad knees, being out of shape, and on and on, the neighbor invited him to ride along one day. Steven agreed, just to shut him up. 

However, Steven had so much fun, he never looked back. He got in shape, went to the Fire Academy in Collin County and became a firefighter in Flower Mound in 2009. He was promoted to engineer in 2019 and was on his way to captain. But with some administrative challenges in the town later on that were out of his control, Steven took some time off and looked for other firefighting opportunities. He’s been happily working in Colleyville, Texas, for a few months and loves it.

Still good friends after all these years, Sarah – who still works on the Texas Tech campus as associate director of the Visitor Center & Operations – called Steven one day in the summer of 2024 and told him about Texas Tech’s new site in Irving – Texas Tech DFW – and the $10K completion program.

“She said something like, ‘It’s for people just like you that could not finish for one reason or another, and you need to go check it out.’ So I did,” Steven said with a twinkle in his eye. “I completed the first step in the program – the free microcredentials – in the fall, applied to the $10K program and got in, finished the capstone class this spring, and walked the stage May 17.” 

Steven credits Osvaldo “Oz” Dominguez, his advisor for the degree program, for seeking out and organizing all of Steven’s various college credits at UTSA and San Antonio College, as well as getting the most out of Steven’s work history. Steven didn’t need much at all to complete his degree at Texas Tech.

“I wanted to do this for myself, to finish what I started, but also seeing my girls go through college really inspired me to finish my degree, and they’re both doing very well,” Steven said with a wide smile.

Kendall and Kylee remember frequently hearing their dad say he wished he would have finished college. 

“It was a unique experience to have him FaceTime me asking how to use Blackboard for a class he had,” Kendall said with a laugh. “Actually, he called about assignments a few times as well.

“Texas Tech says, ‘From Here, It’s Possible™,’ and us watching him graduate after 22 years is inspiring to see him not give up on his dream to get his degree and come back to walk the stage.” 

Taking into account both Steven’s and Sarah's extended families, Kendall is actually the 16th family member to attend Texas Tech.

With the $10K program, there are generally two kinds of people who pursue it: those who need the degree to further their career and others who have simply always wanted to complete the incomplete. Steven says he’s both, having always had the desire to finish and needing a bachelor’s degree for promotion to battalion chief or higher in the fire service.

One of the more attractive aspects of the program for him was the ability to continue working and still have the time to complete his degree. As a firefighter he runs a 48-96 work schedule, meaning he has two days on and four days off.

“I’ve already been using a lot of what I learned in my career, as far as our leadership ideologies and ethics, which is fantastic,” Steven said. “It’s kind of opened another door for me, for when I do get promoted here to carry those leadership qualities into what I’m doing almost immediately.”

Steven says for those who never got to finish, those who are hanging onto that desire, those like him – who got busy working and with life – to just do it; just go in and talk to an advisor and get it done. 

He added that about 90% of the students in his cohort were all previous Red Raiders. They talked about their experience in Lubbock, and in life, what led them away from college to go to work, and most of them had similar stories.

“I have to tell you, as soon as I walked through those doors in Irving and saw the Double T and the red and black, it just gave me chills,” Steven said with an almost imperceptible shiver. “It was fun to be able to be back in that role. Texas Tech is everywhere, which I love.

“Here in the Metroplex you have a lot of colleges that you can go to and finish. But for me it was a family tradition that I wanted to graduate from Texas Tech. For all those years it was very difficult to try to make sense of having to go back to Lubbock. Now with the $10K program and Texas Tech DFW, it’s possible.”