Tennessee offering loan forgiveness
You may have already heard that the Gov. of TN has decided to offer loan forgivenss for any RNs who pursue their graduate degree to teach within the state's nursing programs. We have students who want to get their RN degrees but ther aren't enough instructors. I sure wish the Federal Gov't would get involved so many of us who want to get a higher degree but have resistant because of paying back student loans. Maybe more of us baby boomers would go back to school and teach the newbies coming into nursing school.
Part of the problem is the pay difference. A nurse with a masters degree and NP credentials could easily earn $75-$95K whereas the same masters prepared nurse working as a faculty member would have to take a $10-20K cut in pay.
I've also heard some universities only want adjunct professors to fill in the gap. :frustrated:
'Cat'
I admit the pay for teaching is always less. But without a MSN I have made well over 95K a year. Career choice is the main reason but having my CCM helps!
It's good to see that more incentives are being offered for nurses to continue their education, become eligible to teach down the road.
The problem is we need more nursing faculty now. Waiting lists for nursing programs are 2-3 years in most places, up to 4,5,6, etc. No one is going to wait that long to get into a program.
They're estimating that the number of nursing school graduates will roughly, match the number of nurses leaving the bedside until 2012. After that, the nurses leaving will far outnumber the nurses coming into the nursing field.
I'm glad we're seeing some progress, but I fear it is going to be too little too late. Things are going to get ugly on the floors (even more so than we're seeing now).
The more we can do now, to get more graduates in the next five years the better.
The more we can do to keep our staff nurses on staff and in the field, the better. Nurses will be needing each others support, now more than ever.
Ever hopeful,
Andrew Lopez, RN
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