An affront to the nursing profession

catcolalex · May 12, 2004

I am in an RN-BSN program at a university which also happens to be a state run school, and i can tell you that the main problem is, surprise, money. there is not enough money alloted to fund nursing schools. most of our instructors are PhD's and make less than we do as RN's. What needs to change? more money for the programs=more students accepted=more students graduated= less nursing shortage. but who wants to be a nursing instructor? go through all that school (MSN, PhD) to make less money than a grocery-store check out clerk?

Nurse GOODNIGHT · May 12, 2004

I agree. I am in a program and was finding it difficult to work and know several people who would be excellent nurses and want to enroll but the classes are not offered at the right time(s). Since I need to work, I would like to take some summer nursing classes. They said there were none offered due to lack of staff. The regular staff is potentially made up of nurses who are burned out or who need to work in the summer also to make up for the paltry salary. I know most do PRN work for the extra money and to keep their skills fresh. I think some of it may also be inadequate allocation of funds in addition to not enough because from what I have seen some programs have an abundance. Were is the union? Also, the working conditions should compensate for the lack of funds but I have see lack of support for other instructors from other instructors. Everything can be better if we work together. (Those who cannot hang together will most assuredly hang seperately). So it is a vicious circle, more people want to take classes and not enough to teach. I have met so many people who want to go to nursing school. But isn't this in direct opposition to the economics supply demand. If everyone who wanted to go to nursing school went, then how would the salaries suffer. I was just wondering.

oramar · May 12, 2004

I would like to know what the average salary of a university professor happens to be. Then I would like to compare it to the salary of the average nursing PHD teaching at a university. I wonder if there is any sex discrimination going on here. Most nursing PHDs are women my age and it is a possibility there is residual discrimination from the old days. On the other hand I can't imagine these educated women standing for that sort of thing.

angel337, MSN, RN · May 12, 2004

a former professor of mine with a masters told me her salary was low 60's when she first began teaching. she says that in her opinion, yes, she should be paid more but she obtained the ms degree so that she could teach and not necessarily make alot more money. the fact that she does not work weekends or holidays and has a 6 hour a day work week is worth it to her. as a staff rn you can make the same salary, but unfortunately you work like a dog and this causes many nurses to feel stuck in their jobs and unhappy. so far i like being a staff nurse but i know that eventually i don't want to continue working this way for the rest of my career. i was recently offered a job to teach clinical to medical assistants and the pay isn't very high, but the switch would be nice sometime. i still plan on staying a staff ED nurse and do the teaching part time. and no, i don't have a masters.

Salus · May 12, 2004

Here is some info for oramar:

from www.salary.com under the education catergory

Professor 98,000

Associate Professor 75,000

Assistant Professor 61,000

Health educator 49,000

Wow, I guess health is not that important

nursemouse · May 12, 2004

I was in academia, and I'd totally agree. Unfortunately, I didn't find one of those academic jobs where we work 6-hour days and have all sorts of free and holiday time. Between preparing and updating lectures, grading papers, rotating my clinical groups in hospitals and multiple other responsibilities, I easily had a 60 hour/week job. If I went home, paperwork went with me. And the salary was embarrassingly low (I have a Masters). I tried this at a major University and at a hospital-based Diploma program. I really, really loved those positions (and, frankly, I was GOOD at it), but didn't feel it was fair to have put my family through the nightmare and expense of my grad school (I'm still paying off the loans) only to take a $10,000-$20,000/year pay cut.

Until nursing faculty are paid what they are worth, there will continue to be a nursing shortage. Nursemouse

llg, PhD, RN · May 12, 2004

As a nurse with a PhD, who has done a little teaching, but now works for a hospital...

The whole faculty compensation thing is very complicated. Nursing faculty make about the same as other faculty members in fields such as English, history, anthropology, etc. and at the lower levels basic sciences. However, faculty in some departments make considerably more because their salaries are supplemented with grant money and money earned from projects they work on, consultation they do, etc. Nurses have not been very good at developing those opportunities for increasing their incomes beyond the base salary offered by most colleges and universities (which are depedent on the largess of the state's tax payers and the students to come up with the money to pay the school's bills.)

Also, nursing faculty salaries tend to be a little on the low side compared to other university departments because those people in the other departments move more quickly up the academic hierarchy. Most enter graduate school at age 22 and have their PhD's by the time they are 30. They occupy those lower level faculty positions (e.g. Lecturer, Instructor, Assistant Professor) while they are still in their 20's and 30's. These are the entry-level jobs in academia. The low salaries are considered normal and OK for people still in grad school and/or just graduated and trying to establish their academic careers. By the time they are in their 40's, they qualify for higher paying positions as Associate Professors and Full Professors and may earn extra money by being a course coordinator, departent head, etc.

However, nurses usually delay going to graduate school until their 30's or even 40's. By the time they seek these "entry level" academic jobs, they already qualify for the higher paying jobs in hospitals. But in academia, they are the equivalent of a "new grad" and have to start at the bottom of the hierachy and the bottom of the pay scale. Most nursing faculty never reach the upper levels of that hierarchy and get tenure, become a full professor, etc. -- where the salaries are higher. Because they begin their academic careers later in life than most people in other fields, they never have time to rise as high on the totem pole. Does that make sense?

Also, while faculty salaries often seem low, the benefits are sometimes much better than those found in hospitals. When I left my previous faculty job (assistant professor) to take my current job (at the level of a CNS), my salary went up by $11,000 per year. However, when I factored in the great retirement plan and 100% paid health insurance of the university, the hospital came out only very slightly ahead ... and when you consider that the faculty appointment was for only 10 months of the year, not 12, they were really about equal.

llg

Havin' A Party!, ASN, RN · May 12, 2004

How 'bout the broader question of raising the compensation in nursing -- across the profession?