Choosing schools

Get your MSN, it will be worth it in the long run. Please do not go the LVN route. Your prospects for employment will be slim. Check out University of San Diego. It is one of the top nursing schools in the nation and the campus is gorgeous.

http://www.sandiego.edu/nursing/

I can sypathize with OP's desire not to "go backward", but there is a world of difference between nursing education and what OP is familiar with. The most important distinction is that there are specific (enforced) criteria for admission. Let's face it, nobody prohibits folks with low GPAs from acceptance into communication or marketing majors but Nursing is not a "major" and unlike other other academic degrees, it's not open to anyone who can pay the tuition.

Nursing education is accomplished through nursing programs... uniquely structured so that credits really not transferrable between programs. Nursing programs require maintenance of a minimum GPA and have strict limitations on absences, course failures or withdrawals. So getting accepted does not mean that the stress is over.

There is an enormous demand for nursing education right now - largely due to popular myths of high pay and stellar job security. Basically, it's being touted as the end of the rainbow so nursing programs are being overrun with applicants.

All in all, people who have been successful in other degree programs are usually shocked at the reality of nursing education - much harder to get into, much more rigid and unforgiving with an unpleasant tendency to turn A-B students into B-C students.

PP is correct - LVNs have extremely limited job prospects at this time. Avoid commercial (investor owned) schools unless you want to pay 10X what a degree is really worth.