US Nursing Faculty Shortage Reduces Number of Nursing Students
Although enrollment in US nursing programs grew by about 5% in 2007, 30,709 qualified applicants were turned away due to a shortage of faculty and other resources, according to data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). Though there is much interest in nursing careers, many applicants seeking to enter the profession cannot be accommodated due to insufficient faculty, clinical placement sites and classroom space.
To
address the nursing faculty shortage, AACN is attempting to secure federal
funding for professional nursing programs, offer regional faculty development
conferences, administer minority faculty recruitment scholarship programs,
collect annual data on faculty vacancy rates, identify strategies to address the
shortage and focus media attention on the issue.
Due to
the demands of today’s health care system, the greatest need in the nursing
workforce is for nurses at the baccalaureate- and graduate- degree levels, as
higher levels of nursing education are linked with lower patient mortality
rates, fewer errors, and greater job satisfaction among RNs.
In
order to address nursing shortage across the US, RNs were not required to have a
Bachelor’s degree. However, by
not requiring nurses to have a baccalaureate degree has contributed greatly to
the current shortage of nurse educators. According to data from the federal
Division of Nursing, nurse graduates of baccalaureate-degree programs are much
more likely than graduates of associate degree programs to pursue a doctoral or
master’s degree, which is required to teach in nursing programs.
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