excelsior accepted in ?? states

RN34TX · Jan 2, 2006

Does anyone know if Arkansas state board of nursing accepts Excelsior or not. I sure hope so. I have started the program through Rue ed. Please tell me that I didn't just waste my time and money. :sniff:

Yes, Arkansas accepts EC grads without restrictions of any kind. It is written and easy to find on their board of nursing website.

Jo Dirt · Jan 3, 2006

And that's all your going to get.

If it is public enough for the public to know there was a study conducted on how dangerous Excelsior graduates are, I'd say it would be public enough to find out more about it than by anectdotal accounts from burned ex-EC students.

Bottom line: California is the only state that won't accept EC grads at all. Even the California BON is not going to diss the program. In spite of the horror stories of EC educated nurses with humps on their backs lurking from the shadows causing death and destruction with their incompetence, Excelsior is not allowed because the school's clinical component does not meet the requirements to be licensed in CA.

Jerry-Jet · Jan 9, 2006

The REAL reason some states don't accept Excelsior College graduates is for one and only one reason: so Jr. and Community colleges will have a monopoly on RN education--there IS no other low cost alternative and because every Jr. colleges prerequisite requirements are slightly different--every susequent school will make any who fails repeat everything--either people will PAY and do that or just give up.

What gripes them about Excelsior college is that it is OBJECTIVE. They can't flunk out people for SUBJECTIVE reasons.

Now I would never say that NO ONE should be flunked out of clinicals for SUBJECTIVE reasons because patient safety is paramount. ANYONE will tell you who has completed clinicals in traditional nursing programs that some people get flunked out of clinicals for unfathomable capricious reasons while morons pass! When that happens to an unfortunate person they have to either RETAKE prerequisites and start all over or really pay alot at a BSN program. Some people don't have the money. Not to mention that if their new school ever hears that they were at another nursing school and flunked out that they will be branded!

What it really boils down to is CONTROL to enter the profession and by that CONTROL locked in monopoly and tuition to Jr. colleges. See most Jr. colleges don't have the money for the clinical faculty to graduate a decent percentage of nursing students--they weed them out--regardless of their suitability as nurses or their safety in a clinical setting--but only because they don't have the money for enough clinical faculty to evaluate them all!

Excelsior College breaks their monopoly and people are able to get around them! That's where the real rub is. They could care less if a person could pass the NCLEX or whther the person could function as a nurse--they just want control of nursing education tuition money. What did Deep Throat say? Follow the money!

Anyone that believes that the Micky Mouse clinicals in traditional nursing programs come anywhere close to predicting how well an individual could funtion in a REAL setting is crazy! That's not to say that clinical education isn't of any use--it is--but if it REALLY is then why shouldn't nursing education programs be more on the lines of the old hopsital hands on nursing programs? One word--MONEY! Such hands on training costs too much--if it didn't you wouldn't see the dying of those hospital based programs.

So spare me all the self righteous concerns about patient safety--if State Boards of Nursing were REALLY concerned with patient safety THEY would test individual's clinical skills just like states already give people DRIVING licenses after they pass a test! If someone graduates from Excelsior College and passes the NCLEX they have the mental ability to function as a nurse and they for sure have a rudimentary ability to function in the REAL world as evidenced by PASSING the CPNE which many do not pass!

They have just as good a chance of functioning as a nurse as anyone else who went through a traditional program and passed subjective clinical evaluations which other than a mound of paperwork had very little HANDS ON doing of ANYTHING! Not to mention that in those clinicals a ZILLION tasks are done wrong and some people pass and some don't--while that might screen out some bad apples it also screens out good apples. Excelsior college offers the opportunity to break the Nursing Tuition Monopoly and relieve the nursing shortage which ENDANGERS patient health.

Grow up people and get a clue--we're living in the 21st century--traditional schools will not last indefinitely. If you want to test hands on skills for the sake of patient saftey then by all means test them--just don't tell me that the Mickey Mouse hands on clinical tests of traditional programs are any better an indicator of potential functioning as a nurse than Excelsior College's CPNE and the rigor of it's purely OBJECTIVE self study which requires DISCIPLINE beyond that of traditional programs!

Bottom line: Excluding Excelsior College graduates and potentially any other distance learning program in the future IS NOT about patient safety but all about MONEY!

RN34TX · Jan 9, 2006

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I will comment on some of it.

If you think that EC doesn't fail people for "SUBJECTIVE" reasons just like in traditional programs, I disagree and have the experience to back that up.

I'll mention only one example just to make my point, yet keep as brief as possible, even though I have many more to list during my own 3 day CPNE experience:

The wound care station. You think to yourself, simple and easy, right?

My examiner had to have a conference with the CA to debate whether my dressing was a pass or fail. I never broke sterile field, both of them acknowledged that. Yet my examiner "didn't like" the way I placed the sterile dressing on the wound. It wasn't "the way we do it" at another CPNE test site as she was substituting from another CPNE site.

I passed, but the examiner was angry about it because it wasn't done how she would teach a student to do it. None of her personal criteria, of course, was anywhere to be seen in the CPNE book, yet she expected me to do it her way and could not accept that plenty of other instructors across the U.S. do not teach it the same way that she does and that there is more than one way to do many nursing activities and still be "correct."

As far as the theory on schools wanting to monopolize nursing students and graduates, I don't think that it had so much to do with the schools themselves as it did with strongarm tactics from one loud, vocal nursing union (that ironically represents EC grads) and one big powerful hospital corporation (that ironically to this day, employs EC grads.)

If it truely were about patient safety and incompetence, rather than political motives, then these issues would have been brought to the CA BNE long before 2003 since CA had no problem licensing grads since 1973.

You can't tell me that the "fly by night" CMA's and EMT's that became RN's via EC, that ended up being bad RN's, were nowhere to be found, completely undetectable all through the 70's, 80's, and 90's, until a CA nursing union and Kaiser "discovered" their many errors and/or patient killings and put a stop to them.

What disturbs me most about this entire controversy, is that people who are totally in favor of CA's decision, put all their faith into the CA BNE, never once question the possibility that they might actually be wrong in their "CA law states that every RN grad must have X number of clinical hours...." rhetoric, as if the laws are set in stone, never to be changed with the times.

Laws are changed all of the time and the anti-EC sentiment is based on current CA law. People in favor of EC being banned by the state sit behind the law without any question of it's validity, yet at the same time would question that same law if it didn't suit them.

No one wants to even fathom the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it's CA law that needs to be changed, and not so much EC's curriculum, and don't even take into account that plenty of CA RN's are EC grads and are doing fine. They all want to focus on the sensationalized "bad RN's" or want to focus on how unfair it is for an EC grad to not put in as many clinical hours as a traditional grad.

If I truely needed all of those clinical hours, I would have long been fired and/or had my RN license pulled by now, don't you think?

I agree that CA and EC need to come to terms, and that EC has failed in making a decent effort toward that, but it's time that people start acknowledging the CA BNE's reasons for their decisions, and stop acting as if they are some superpower that couldn't possibly be wrong.

Sheri257 · Jan 9, 2006

Excelsior College breaks their monopoly and people are able to get around them! That's where the real rub is. They could care less if a person could pass the NCLEX or whther the person could function as a nurse--they just want control of nursing education tuition money. What did Deep Throat say? Follow the money!

We've been over this before. The state of California, for example, doesn't make any more or less money with or without EC in the picture. The reason is: they can't take any more students as it is and, even if the state could take more students, they would lose ... not make ... more money.

Remember: state education is subsidized .... which means it costs the state at least $10,000 to educate each nursing student over and above whatever that student pays in tuition. Like any state school, they lose money for every student they take because the government is subsidizing the costs of education. This is why tuition is so much cheaper at state rather than private schools.

If California state schools end up educating the 5,000 or so EC students who were enrolled here, that means the state will actually lose $50 million. So the argument that the state somehow gains with tuition money is ridiculous ... since state school tuition doesn't begin to cover the real costs of educating nursing students.

:coollook:

Sheri257 · Jan 9, 2006

A few questions RN34TX:

You keep referring to Kaiser and CNA's so called political motives. What were they? If it wasn't patient care then, what did they gain? How, exactly do they benefit, financially or otherwise, from EC being disallowed by the state?

And what do you suggest the laws be changed to? Do we throw out all of the requirements for all of the traditional schools and follow the EC model? Or, are the laws supposed to be changed to make a special exemption just for EC? What would the justification for such a change be?

:coollook:

MedictoRN · Jan 9, 2006

The State per say doesn't make money per say but the BON has a vested interest in keeping out of state schools out of California. This "not concurrent with theory" crap was just an easy way for them to do it. The BON is made up of faculty from local state colleges as well as other licensed nurses. Both of these groups have obvious reasons to keep out as many nurses from elsewhere as they possibly could (i.e. Overtime hours, teaching job security).

If there focus was on patient care as they proclaim they would expand the number of state nursing schools and create more nurses to fill the positions that are open throughout the state and thereby reduce overtime and increase nursing coverage in the hospital.

I'm sure you won't agree but it's always fun to read your replies...

We've been over this before. The state of California, for example, doesn't make any more or less money with or without EC in the picture. The reason is: they can't take any more students as it is and, even if the state could take more students, they would lose ... not make ... more money.
Remember: state education is subsidized .... which means it costs the state at least $10,000 to educate each nursing student over and above whatever that student pays in tuition. Like any state school, they lose money for every student they take because the government is subsidizing the costs of education. This is why tuition is so much cheaper at state rather than private schools.
If California state schools end up educating the 5,000 or so EC students who were enrolled here, that means the state will actually lose $50 million. So the argument that the state somehow gains with tuition money is ridiculous ... since state school tuition doesn't begin to cover the real costs of educating nursing students.

Sheri257 · Jan 10, 2006

The State per say doesn't make money per say but the BON has a vested interest in keeping out of state schools out of California. This "not concurrent with theory" crap was just an easy way for them to do it. The BON is made up of faculty from local state colleges as well as other licensed nurses. Both of these groups have obvious reasons to keep out as many nurses from elsewhere as they possibly could (i.e. Overtime hours, teaching job security).
If there focus was on patient care as they proclaim they would expand the number of state nursing schools and create more nurses to fill the positions that are open throughout the state and thereby reduce overtime and increase nursing coverage in the hospital.
I'm sure you won't agree but it's always fun to read your replies...

You're right. I don't agree, but I wish you guys would do a little homework before you make all of these crazy claims.

For one thing ... there's only one educator out of nine board members. So ... eight of the nine members don't have anything to do with state colleges. And four of the members aren't registered nurses either. Three are "public" members and one is a doctor.

If they really wanted to eliminate nurses from out of state or, even foreign nurses, why haven't they taken other measures to do so? 11,000 more out of state RN's were licensed last year than the previous year. If they really want to "keep out" nurses from elsewhere, you'd think the number of outside licensees would be down, not up.

Teaching job security? This doesn't make much sense either. Tenure is the deciding factor in whether a teacher has job security or not. EC doesn't have anything to do with that. All of my teachers are tenured, so they already have job security. And the school, like many across the country, has a two year waiting list so there's no shortage of students. Whether EC is around or not has absolutely no impact on instructor job security.

Overtime protection? This is really off the wall. Most RN's don't want to work that much overtime. Do you know why? Because the tax rate gets so high, you actually start making less money per hour. Ask any California RN and they'll tell you that working overtime often isn't worth it. Sure, a couple of extra shifts may be beneficial but, after that, it's a money loser. Consequently, many RN's turn down overtime.

And ... finally .... the BORN doesn't control nursing school funding, the legislature does. More funding has been approved for nursing schools in recent years, and Schwarzenegger has also promised to lobby for more.

Whether that will happen is another question, since the state has a severe budget deficit, but the deficit is the problem there, not opposition from nursing groups because there isn't any opposition. Everybody wants more funding for nursing schools, but the state is broke.

:coollook:

MedictoRN · Jan 10, 2006

It's pretty obvious that you will never see the other side of anything. Especially anything that challenges your precious notion the California is infinitely wiser than ALL of the other states and couldn't possible missed the mark on this one.

I really wonder why you frequent a distance learning forum if you are so against this education method.

Sheri257 · Jan 10, 2006

It's pretty obvious that you will never see the other side of anything. Especially anything that challenges your precious notion the California is infinitely wiser than ALL of the other states and couldn't possible missed the mark on this one.
I really wonder why you frequent a distance learning forum if you are so against this education method.

I'm actually not against distance learning. I think RN to BSN distance programs are great. So does the BORN, which has approved many of them. I'll probably do an online RN to BSN program myself.

As for the rest of it .... whatever. :rolleyes: I guess I can't resist correcting crazy statements that simply aren't true ... like the state making money by banning EC ... or that the board is totally run by a bunch of teachers who need job security. :chuckle

I mean ... c'mon ... certainly you guys can do better than that. Or, maybe the point isn't accuracy but to make yourselves feel better about the California situation, regardless of the facts. I dunno but ... if California is nuts and if all the other states are, in fact, infinitely wiser, etc. then you guys are more than welcome to work there.

Jo Dirt · Jan 10, 2006

As for the rest of it .... whatever. I guess I can't resist correcting crazy statements that simply aren't true ...

Lizz, other's opnions about why CA won't accept EC grads are no more off or crazy than yours...in fact, their conclusions about money being at the root of it all seem more plausible than yours, and as a matter of fact, money *is* more often than not the main issue regarding policies in government and organizations.

Sheri257 · Jan 10, 2006

Lizz, other's opnions about why CA won't accept EC grads are no more off or crazy than yours...in fact, their conclusions about money being at the root of it all seem more plausible than yours, and as a matter of fact, money *is* more often than not the main issue regarding policies in government and organizations.

What money? Who makes money off of this? How exactly does anybody who opposed EC in California profit from this?

They don't.

Think about it ... the state doesn't make money. Certainly you guys know that the state has to subsidize nursing schools. That means the state loses money for every student they take. And the state board loses money because they don't get the license fees from processing more licensing applications. Plus, the board has spent at least a quarter of a million on the EC lawsuit so ... they're actually losing money there as well.

The state actually loses money on this any way you look at it.

The union ... do they make money off of this? No. Even if the EC decision worsens the shortage, the union doesn't make more money because the only way they make more money is through union dues. And the only way they get more union dues is to organize more facilities and get more members paying dues each month. That means they have to go into new facilities, campaign and win more elections.

EC has nothing to do with the union's income one way or the other.

Kaiser: how do they make more money by supporting the board's decision to ban EC? They don't. They have to go out and hire more nurses which, probably costs them more money. They obviously were willing to do that because they didn't want to hire EC grads to begin with but, there is no financial benefit for Kaiser in supporting the EC ban whatsoever. If anything, it costs them money.

If we're going to talk about financial motives ... what about EC's? Why weren't they willing to even try to meet the board half way on their requirements?

Because it would be expensive and cut into their revenues.

Why have they been willing to take all of these non-experienced non-LVN's which have essentially jeopardized the value of your degree?

Because they want more money.

Why have they made only superficial adjustments, like disallowing MA's and surgical techs, instead of making real changes that would ultimately benefit the program with other state boards? Because even with the Kansas and Colorado decisions, who's going to want to enroll with EC if they have to move away from home and work out-of-state to ultimately get licensed?

But EC isn't willing to make any of those changes because they don't want to spend the money.

If we're going to look at financial motives ... let's look at EC's as well because they have much more financial motives than the California BORN does.

:coollook: