My Review of Lincoln Tech

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I just went to an open house at a local Lincoln Tech. I know there is a ton of bad things about LT on these forums, but wanted to check it out for myself.

Here are the highlights:

1. The school is inside a shopping mall. I am not kidding. It is on top of a Nordstorm.

2. The facilities are very nice, as the facility (as well as the enitre mall) are brand new. You can still smell the construction dust in some places.

3. The woman who gave the tour was very nice, but the admissions rep I am dealing with over the phone is very high-pressure (think car dealer or real estate agent).

4. Self-Study: I noticed that most of the LT threads here mention there is a lot of self-study, which I am not that crazy about. For the most part, I think this is correct. When I looked into the classrooms, I rarely saw an instructor in the front of the classroom teaching. Instead all of the students were sitting at long tables reading their textbooks. Some were talking to each other. In contrast, when I went to a different for profit school 2 weeks ago, I saw the instructors teaching. They were giving a presentation on an overhead projector. But I did not see this at LT.

5. Cost: I still have not gotten the cost of the program. I will get this info this week.

If anyone has experience with LT eithr as a student or just a prospective student, please feel free to share your insights.

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I must state the obvious here: if the school was in a mall on top of a department store, there were no teachers, and you encountered a high-pressure sell like at a used car dealership, why on earth are you even still considering it and asking how much it costs? If I were you I'd run, not walk, away from this so-called school and go to your local community college, city or state university.

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

I would have to agree with the above poster. Is there any way you can find a nursing program at a not for profit institution? I know that my local CC has a LPN and RN program. This way you would save money and get a quality education.

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All of the CCs here are VERY competitive to get into. The main reason I went a 2nd time is because they told me that had a 76% LPN graduation rate and I thought that was a good things.

Anyway, here are the highlights from my 2nd (and FINAL) visit:

1. Even more pressure. When I said I wanted to think things over before enrolling, she said "Well, do you want to become a nurse or what? Are you a serious student"? She also said that I should hurry up and enroll because they are going to raise tuition (the program costs $26k).

So no, I will not be enrolling in LT anytim soon. But I am not going to cross off all for-profit schools. The first one I went to seemed a bit better, plus they are $6k cheaper, a bit closer to my house, and they have an LPN-RN bridge program.

Besides, the trip today to LT was not a total waste since my father got a super cheap oil change at the Midas next dor while I was inside the school.

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Don't disqualify schools because they are competitive. This is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. The competitive schools are the good schools, that will prepare you well and allow you to find a job after you graduate. The non-competitive schools will provide a poor (but very expensive) education, it will be harder to pass NCLEX, and even harder to find a job with that school name on your resume. So be patient and wait until you get into a good school. Going to a poor one is simply a waste of time and money. Haste makes waste.

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Do CCs really provide a beter education? I think more people try to go to them because they are cheaper. The graduation rate at my local CC is 10%! Also I plan to work in a different state than the one I will be attending school in so nobody will have heard of my school. My mother is an RN and said that employers only care that your licensed, not where yu went to school.

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10% of students who declare a nursing major graduate from the CC RN program, or 10% of the RN program students graduate? There's a big difference between those figures, as I'm sure there are thousands of students declaring nursing as a major at the CC but only fraction being accepted to the nursing program. For-profit schools are notorious for providing a poorer quality education than a CC, city college, state university, or non-profit private school. If you're looking at any of the for-profits that are well-known, you bet that employers in another state will be somewhat familiar with it (and possibly trash your resume for that reason)

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Specializes in Med/Surg.
Do CCs really provide a beter education? I think more people try to go to them because they are cheaper. The graduation rate at my local CC is 10%! Also I plan to work in a different state than the one I will be attending school in so nobody will have heard of my school. My mother is an RN and said that employers only care that your licensed, not where yu went to school.

Most state CCs have longtime reputations for providing a good nursing education to students. 10% graduation rate? I find that hard to believe - where are you getting that number from?

Also, where you go to school absolutely has an impact on gaining employment (especially in the current job market). The hospital that just hired me as an intern blatantly stated that they prefer students from my college because of our good reputation.

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CCs in general have low graduation rates. This is because they are gnerally a lot less selectve than 4 year schools. There is a thread on here in the NJ forum about the graduation rate at my local CC (Bergen Community) being only 50% for the nursing program.

https://allnurses.com/nj-nursing-programs/bergen-community-college-356890.html

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I would also have to question whether for profit schools rerally do provide an inferor education than traditional ones. First off, they must maintain the same standards as tradirtional schools if they are accredited. I also did some researh into NCLEX-PN passage rates. The passage rate for the first for profit school I went to is 92%. But the passage rate for the CC program in a neighboring county (my county CC lacks an LPN program) is 88%.

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Specializes in Community Health.

I got to Lincoln Tech and do not recommend it. I'm not going to beat a dead horse with all of the reasons as they have been stated ad naseum here before...the biggest issue for me, though, is that their clinicals are sub-standard. Because it's a for-profit they cram as many people into a class as they possibly can, and there are only so many facilities that accept nursing students...so what you end up with is luck of the draw. I've spent the majority of my clinicals in nursing homes. Now, in my last module, I'm at a great facility and have the opportunity to work with more acute patients-but overall, it's been a huge dissapointment.

That being said, I want to make it clear that just because it is a crummy program does NOT make it easy, and it really bothers me when people jump to the conclusion that graduates of the program are somehow less competant than grads of other programs. Their NCLEX pass rate is one of the highest in the state (98% here in CT) and in order to keep those numbers high, they make it incredibly hard to finish. The minimum score on the ATI (exit exam) is well above the national standard, and you must pass that test before you are allowed to graduate.

BTW-not sure if you got the figures yet, but the tuition is about $35,000. Which is ridiculously high, but seems to be the going rate for most for-profit nursing programs.

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I have the price sheet right in front of me and for LT in Paramus, NJ, it is just a hair below $26,000.

I noticed a lot of the LT threads discuss there being singificant amounts of self-studying. Have you found this to be true in your program? Do the instructors teach much or do you just sit at a table and read a textbook?

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