Nursing schools nationwide rejected more than 41,000 qualified applicants

[RNA]

Nursing schools nationwide rejected more than 41,000 qualified applicants in 2005, compared with 33,000 in 2004 and 18,000 in 2003, and three out of four schools attributed the increased rejections in large part to an insufficient number of faculty members, according to an annual survey conducted by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, USA Today reports. As the 2006 academic year begins, 7.9% of faculty positions at nursing schools remain vacant, and, in response, a number of schools have launched programs to help increase the number of faculty members with help from the federal government, hospitals and the health insurance industry. For example, 14 nursing schools have launched doctoral programs to prepare nurses to teach or work as supervisors in hospitals, and an additional 190 programs are in development. In addition, 31 nursing schools since 2000 have launched fast-track programs that reduce the time required to earn a doctorate by at least one year, and an additional 13 programs are in development.

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/Daily_r...fm?DR_ID=40242

[nursinghumor]

Definitely not a good situation. It is going to get to the point where even if we have students interested in going into nursing, the programs won't be able to accommodate them.

I'm start to hear story after story of 1, 2 or even 3 year waiting lists to get into local nursing programs. On top of them starting to get fiercely competitive. Not a lot of students are going to put their lives on hold to wait for a spot.

Think the average age of a nurse is like 46 now, the average age of a faculty member is approaching 55. In just a few short years, a lot of nursing faculty are going to be retiring. Not a lot of nurses are going into teaching to replace them.

Ask yourself, if here in the Northeast, if you were making up to $60,000 a year as a staff nurse, would you take a $20,000 plus pay cut to work as a faculty member.

Most nurses can't afford to do that no matter how much they'd love to teach. Will have to see how it goes.

Andrew Lopez, RN
http://www.4nursingschools.com

[Aaron C.]

We're turning away 41,000 potential student nurses and yet we are being told that bringing in foreign nurses is the answer....

Why am I not surprised.

[cougarnurse]

It all boils down to money issues. My tuition went up $150 a credit hour in a year and a half, yet the instructors did not see that much of an increase (the money went to improving the school). Yet, where does the money come from, when one works in a hospital? Insurance, for one. I could go on and on......

[prn_12345]

I am a RN with a masters degree, and I am constantly contacted by school's of nursing from across the nation. They are actively recruiting faculty, but the problem like the previous posters have mentioned is the salary.

I have been a nurse for 30 years now, and have my youngest in school studying to become a RN as well. I would love to teach, and do frequent guest lecturing at a local university as a result. The reason I can not agree to go on staff is that I would not be able to afford to keep my home, and retire when I am planning to because of the poor starting salary. It is unfortunate that our best and brightest who can teach are unable to afford to do so.

If the feds really want to help, then they need to subsidize the faculty salaries in the schools of nursing across the nation. I see this as a critical issue and a national security issue when it comes to the health of our nations citizens, that is being compromized by the lack of nurses in our society.

I think that they need to reorganize the priorities of the current administration and start to take care of the issues that affect our well-being and health as opposed to fighting and spending billions of dollars in a war that has caused our goverment to forsake our basic needs. We have elderly and young the most vunurable in our society without insurance or adequate health care, We have homeless and mentally ill roaming the streets with out any hope of help, We have the middle class being squeezed and losing health insurance. Mean while the cost of health care continues to go up.

It is a national disgrace and shame that we can not afford to educate our future nurses or take care of our society. Until the government changes its tack I see no end to the nursing shortage and the lack of faculty in our nursing schools.

[Mississippi]

I am a first semester nursing student and I was one of the fortunate ones. I only had a one semester wait. I have friends that have been waiting for one to three years to get in. I was told early in the semester that 350 people were not accepted. Only 55 of us made it in.

Afew days ago, I found out that one of the local hospitals recruited 72 nurses from the Philipines. I was told that they were well qualified nurses and that they spoke good conversational English. There are 2 problems that I see with this:

1. Some of the materials/supplies are called something different by the Filipinos. For example, foley catheters and bedpans are known by other names. The nurses had to be shown these 2 items before they could do what was needed.

2. On top of being paid the same salary as other nurses, they are being given 3 months of housing, food, clothing, transportation allowance. For this area, for 72 nurses and their families, this equates to roughly $650,000 of allowance. This is a rough guestimate by me and I do think it is a little on the low side. If you translate this to pay for new teachers, it would work out to something like this:

$45,000 salary = 14 new instructors = 154 new students.

$52,000 salary = 12 new instructors = 132 new students

$60,000 salary = 10 new instructors = 110 new students.

This is from just one hospital in the area. I have no idea yet what the other hospitals in the area have done as far as recruiting. Of course, some of this money could go to increasing current nursing pay to help retain the ones already in the workforce.