Methacrylate and acrylate polymers are widely used in medicine and biology because they are well tolerated in vivo. Also many methacrylates and acrylates can form hydrogels that are appropriate materials for tissue engineered scaffolds due to their mechanical compliance and mass transfer properties. However, many methacrylate and acrylate polmers that have seen wide application in medicine are not biodegradable or can not be easily cleared from the body. Degradable polymers for tissue engineered constructs were developed using atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) techniques along with a degradable crosslinker. Alternate techniques for controlling the molecular weight of the polymer may also include reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT). In one example, poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (pHEMA) was selected for the scaffold material due to its elasticity, non-inflammatory response, and because it can be easily fabricated into numerous configurations. In this study porous pHEMA scaffolds can be templated using poly(methyl methacrylate) beads, which lead to a controlled architecture and known surface area. pHEMA was studied at various molecular weights between 10 kDa and 300 kDa. The molecular weight range suitable for renal clearance was the primary focus for these experiments; literature reports this molecular weight range to be 10-50 kDa. The solubility of pHEMA was also examined in a 0.15 M NaCl solution. The fabricated hydrogels contain oligomeric blocks of polycaprolactone (PCL), a hydrolytically degradable polymer, as a crosslinking agent. The synthesis of the dimethacrylated PCL crosslinker was monitored using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and the crosslinking density of the hydrogels was examined between 0.5 and 4 mol %. Degradation of the pHEMA hydrogels was accelerated using 1.0 M NaOH and the degradation products were then measured using size exclusion chromatography (SEC) to verify the polymer lengths and polydispersity. The molecular weights of both the polymerized pHEMA and the degraded hydrogels followed expected trends and the polydispersity was found to be as low as 1.3. In vitro degradation studies were then performed in phosphate buffered solution (PBS) and a PBS with 2 U/mL papain solution. Additionally, the surface of the hydrogels was modified using 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethyl aminopropyl) and N-hydroxysuccinimidecarbodiimide (EDC and NHS respectively) attachment chemistry to enhance cell attachment and growth. The chain length, crosslinking density, and polymerization solvent were found to greatly affect the mechanical properties of the pHEMA hydrogels. An optimal solvent combination of dimethylformamide and ethylene glycol was determined experimentally. The low molecular weights required for renal clearance do not have mechanical properties that are in the natural tissue range. To overcome this problem, a degradable macroinitiator was synthesized. This initiator contains an oligomeric block of PCL and has difunctional ATRP active end groups. This allows the overall molecular weight of the polymer chain to double while keeping the degradation products within the renal clearance range. The macroinitator was evaluated using NMR and the molecular weight of the polymer was measured, pre and post degradation, with SEC. As expected the molecular weight of the degraded polymer was found to be half that of the nondegraded polymer. The degradation rate of this material can be controlled by the crosslinking density, the PCL chain length, or an alternate choice for the crosslinker. We envision this material to have applications in tissue engineering and drug delivery.