FREE Colleges?! & How it affects Nursing

[FutureDNP2021]

So the new federal proposal for FREE higher education across the nation is a close reality.

This is great for upward mobility and all, but without serious moderation would this be a disaster for RNs? Personally Im not seeing how its great for everyone (adults & kids) to flood our colleges & job markets all at once. I am trying to comprehend how this will affect the nursing job market and I just can not fathom the infinitely exponential repercussions. Will nurses accept jobs for less money? Will jobs be on a 4 year waiting list to apply? Will hiring politics be corrupted? Will we lose negotiation leverage like full-time perks, etc? Will we all just need graduate degrees? Etc, etc ...

Furthermore, am I the only one kicking myself that I actually had to pay for college? I mean, looking forward I picture myself in 5 years from today still paying off my BSN student loans, meanwhile my newly hired coworkers will be debt-free, homeowning new-grads, with others daily applying for my staff job by the thousands?

Sigh, ok a bit dramatic I think, lol. It just stings with a facepalm type of regret & I just have a bad gut feeling about this. Please help to remind me why free college is a good thing for nursing again?? ~ Thaaank You ~

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Please explain what you mean by this? I dont see the reasoning why we think nursing schools have a limited capacity and what exact factors are involved in that limitation. Thank you

Nursing schools must have a mandated faculty-to-student ratio in order to be approved/accredited. The number of qualified faculty determine the number of students that can be accepted. There are also limitations related to the physical facilities and clinical education sites available. So - it is not just a matter of shoving some desks into the room.

Although the numbers (of nurses who are qualified for faculty) are increasing, the schools still do not have the money to hire them. Existing faculty jobs pay much less than other jobs that require the same qualifications.

[SC_RNDude]

A lot of discussion here based on a false premise. Free college is no where close to becoming reality.

[Xlorgguss]

Higher education should be free. Many classes can be taught online, taught at a distance, and many free resources are all around us. It is a crock that we take out thousands in loans and pay back the government at such a high interest rate. Would free education flood the market? I don't think so. It's not like everyone goes to school and it's not like everyone wants to be a nurse. People still have to hold down jobs, families, etc. There might be an initial push towards high paying fields, but nursing in particular seems relatively regulated as illustrated by other posters. Free education might actually allow people to explore what field of study like so all don't end up hating our, careers in the future

[FutureDNP2021, ASN, RN]

Each state BON sets a cap on the number of students that can be supervised by a single instructor in clinical (i.e., maximum clinical group size). In order to increase their enrollment, schools have to document to the BON that they have sufficient faculty and clinical sites to accommodate a larger number of students, and that is a big deal (considering that most nursing programs are struggling to maintain sufficient faculty and clinical sites now, for the number of students for which they are currently approved).

Online schools are not operating this way though, right? These online students must seek out & secure their own clinical sites, accredited preceptors, internships, etc. and the textbook & testing materials consist of hundreds of dollars a semester, not the tens of thousands the schools charge. So I am very curious how all these self-taught curriculum programs are actually being "capped" in these online schools by way of the BON's. I mean its basically like, "Read these e-books, take these online tests created by web publishers, and show up for your license exam." Im confused where the instructors & schools actually come in? My profs use pre-made power points to lecture from & like I said, the clinicals are managed by the the actual health care facility staff, not by the schools instructors.

Aside from some of the best universities, from what Im seeing, most other schools are accepting students but are not held responsible for their actual training. ... so I cant help but question the actual value students are getting for the tens of thousands of dollars being given to these educational institutions. In any other business, we would have adapted to cut out the middle man. This would consist of shifting those tens of thousands of dollars from our schools, and into our actual learning & licensing resource tools. Seems curious why we arent just paying the BON, publishers, and license testing sites just a little bit more. Then, students could actually save tens of thousands from the schools while simultaneously paying just hundreds more for the actual benefits and results of learning tools we actually use.

As it is now, students learn from You Tube tutorials (free), e-book & quizzing publishers (only hundreds of dollars per semester), and AIS (a** in seat) testing & licensing centers which are only a few hundred dollars, and finally the clinical experience programs (which benefit hospitals by lowering their new hire training/insurance costs & raise the quality of their employee pool, so hospitals & clinics, etc are cashing in on these cost saving benefits to hospitals of on-the-job training students as potential employees).

So in short, I predict a wave of the future is upon us. I see online curriculum programs are meeting demands that some consumers desire & I still do not see where the schools management of self-taught education is required or desired by a large percentage of our up and coming profession. If this is where FEDS are planning on opening up more affordable education, they save money (unpaid FED student loans, no community return value on non-graduated grant investments, etc), then I can see how "free" college is feasible and inevitable for many professions, but not all.

So, free college has potential to flood the market, yes. BUT I agree with the other reply's that only students who are truly determined will pass the finish line at their chosen professions license exam, with or without the schools helicopter parenting. After all, students are self-managing anyhow by achieving pass-points of online publishers & are effectively monitored at third party testing sites & are networking with hands on hospital HR depts & are eventually regulated by BON licence standards in the real world anyhow.

So, yeah Im still seeing a giant crack in that mysteriously "capped" glass ceiling.

[elkpark]

Online schools are not operating this way though, right? These online students must seek out & secure their own clinical sites, accredited preceptors, internships, etc. and the textbook & testing materials consist of hundreds of dollars a semester, not the tens of thousands the schools charge. So I am very curious how all these self-taught curriculum programs are actually being "capped" in these online schools by way of the BON's. I mean its basically like, "Read these e-books, take these online tests created by web publishers, and show up for your license exam." Im confused where the instructors & schools actually come in? My profs use pre-made power points to lecture from & like I said, the clinicals are managed by the the actual health care facility staff, not by the schools instructors.

There are lots of graduate programs in nursing, for those who are already RNs, that operate in the way you describe (some of then legitimate and some of them of v. poor quality), but there are extremely limited opportunities for basic nursing education (leading to licensure) through an on-line program. Your original question appears to be about people entering nursing at the generalist level; did I misinterpret your post?

Besides which, I still think it will be a cold day in he!! before we see "free college" in the US, anyway, so it's more or less a moot point.