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Nursing School Enrollment Flat as Applications Increase

New up to date research supports all of the findings we have recently published on this site in that a huge percentage of qualified applicants can’t get into nursing school programs because there are simply not enough places.

The research published by the National League of Nursing (NLN) found that only an additional 15 nursing school programs have been added in the last year and overall enrollment is at the same levels as 12 months ago. With the severe shortage of nurses still out there and predictions of several hundred places being required over the next 10 years, and with the new health care plan for the nation this is a grim picture to be telling in 2010.

Demand is still outstripping supply

The biggest news in the survey (or perhaps not news to many but just underpins what we already know) is that the demand for places is far out stripping the supply in the industry. In fact for all types of nursing programs 23.4% of qualified applicants were turned away from courses during 2008 and for prelicensure programs a whopping 119,000 qualified people or 39% of applications were turned down. And these are from people who are appropriately qualified to get on the courses. There are many thousands of others who have applied and not been accepted.

The 2009 survey was conducted during May to September 2009 to collect data from 2007 and 2008 but still with the above information schools are still reporting unfilled vacancies in nursing programs. In fact overall there was a 9.8% unmet vacancy and those schools that replied said the main reasons were lack of qualified candidates and a lack of finance to complete the course.

This leads us to think that some areas of the country have massive over subscriptions and others simply can’t get qualified candidates otherwise the statistics that have been released don’t really add up.

What can you do to get into a nursing school of your choice ?

Well the old adage of moving where the work is equally applies to going where the vacancies are in nursing schools. Because of the massive demand which can only increase with a continued recession and having a health care plan which will raise awareness of becoming a nurse any prospective trainee nurse should look at a number of options and many different types of schools and colleges where they can study and get their degrees.

Options could include online colleges where generally there are places but also to look around the country at other accredited schools to see what is on offer. Overall across the US just over one third of the nation’s prelicensure nursing programs have continued to be located in the South; just over a quarter in the Midwest; and about one fifth in the Northeast. The smallest concentration of programs remains in the West, where just under 18 percent of programs were located in 2008.

The percentage of programs that turned away qualified candidates is as follows :

Prelicensure Programs :

Post Licensure Programs

Figures are for the Fall 2008