How are Schools getting away with pumping out so many new graduates for no jobs?

Nurses Job Hunt

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Question: How are Schools getting away with pumping out so many new graduates for no jobs?

Thoughts: My first thought on this is that there is a lack of education or better yet lack of information discovered by students prior to taking the plunge. Then couple this with all of the public announcements in the media about a "Nursing Shortage"...Next thing you know, everybody wants to get into nursing.

I think that if someone wants to learn the field of nursing, then they should by all means DO IT! Nothing should stop your dreams. What I don't agree with is all of the media exaggeration in regards to a nursing shortage. Dont get me wrong. In locations where there is a nursing shortage it should be stated and addressed. Nursing schools should not be taking advantage of students be perpetuating the lie. Some of the costs to go to accelerated BSN programs is ridiculous...you might as well go to med school at those prices! I think that there should be a law that says that the schools will only be allowed a certain number of students based on the guarantee of a certain amount of new graduate jobs per year for the areas. Also, schools and hospitals should be required to provide residency type jobs after graduation at lower wages. Another option could be for the nursing schools to create an entrepreneurial track for students to have more options.

Nurses are not Doctors, but if doctors had to face this challenge after graduation, do you think that they would risk wasting their money on a slim chance that they would get a job?

-Zenally

I agree with CrunchRN, Until we stand together, nothing will change......sigh again

***tell your story to CNN! Let's overwhelm them with the truth***

https://allnurses.com/first-year-after/new-grad-nurses-807138.html

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

Now being in $150k (loans from before and loans from the nursing degree) debt, I am having a hard time getting a job. Unfortunately, i am a new graduate with a lot of finance/accounting experience, with volunteer experience, have lots and lots of certifications under my belt (I had to shell out a ton of money for that) and I am open to relocating. Now keep in mind, getting a license in different states cost about $300-$400 (license fee, license verification, electronic finger printing, taking extra courses) and then you have to maintain that license even if you decide not to use it...I mean come on, everyone wants to cash on this b.s that there is a shortage of nurses..

*** I am sure you will find a job soon. You are EXACTLY what hospitals are looking for. Hospitals want BSNs now cause they are deep in debt and seen as less likely than debt free ADNs to vote with their feet when faced with poor working conditions.

Specializes in Emergency.

lost in translation

Specializes in Long term care.
Meh. When my sister didn't get into the x-ray tech school that she applied to, her college career counselor convinced her that she would be able to get a job as a museum curator with a Bachelor's in History. She'll be lucky if she gets a job at a gas station with that degree, but don't tell her that.

Yes, the people who run and work for colleges and universities have a vested interest in enrolling students for potentially useless degrees - including students like my sister who would better benefit from a more practical education.

It's not just nursing.

And, honestly, like someone mentioned earlier -- I feel worse for the people who graduate with law school-sized debt and can't find a job.

Oh wow that was so wrong for the school to do that to your sister. And I know people with over 100K in private loans and make less than $14 a hour or are just not even employed.

Specializes in School health, Maternal-Newborn.

It might not be a school's obligation to find you a job, but it is the responsibility of the advisers not to sell a bill of goods to prospective students. It is the responsibility of the agencies that accredit schools to slow things down when the job market is slow. I hear librarianship has crashed as a career choice, yet at the same time my small rural school couldn't find a full time school librarian for what they could afford to pay. (They hired a shared librarian with another district)

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Meh. When my sister didn't get into the x-ray tech school that she applied to, her college career counselor convinced her that she would be able to get a job as a museum curator with a Bachelor's in History. She'll be lucky if she gets a job at a gas station with that degree, but don't tell her that.

Yes, the people who run and work for colleges and universities have a vested interest in enrolling students for potentially useless degrees - including students like my sister who would better benefit from a more practical education.

It's not just nursing.

And, honestly, like someone mentioned earlier -- I feel worse for the people who graduate with law school-sized debt and can't find a job.

*** But nursing _IS_ different. There are not employers of history majors out there lobbying state and federal governments to use tax payer money to vasty increase the number of history grads. There is not a lot of history major employers who see their profits cut as a result of having to treat and pay their history majors decently. There is nobody putting false and self serving "hisory major" shortage propaganda out there.

I'm a nursing student who resides in Chicago, now unless my city is exempt from the areas where job opportunities are scarce in nursing, I have to say that just from my observation, everyone that I know that has graduated in 2012 alone have already gained employment. I know a lot of people that has graduated in the past few years that are employed in the field. I am changing careers I'm a licensed hairstylist of eight years and I now have found the time to go to school to pursue my dream of working in the medical field. I have plenty of clients that are RN's even my Mother-in-Law is one. Not to mention the good amount of cousins I have that are RN's as well. All of them are actively employed. So is it safe to say that Chicago may not be one of those cities?

Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.
*** But nursing _IS_ different. There are not employers of history majors out there lobbying state and federal governments to use tax payer money to vasty increase the number of history grads. There is not a lot of history major employers who see their profits cut as a result of having to treat and pay their history majors decently. There is nobody putting false and self serving "hisory major" shortage propaganda out there.

You're looking at what is happening to nursing education from a narrow perspective. What is happening in nursing education is merely a small part of a broken educational system, fostered by a general attitude among the middle and upper middle class that you need a university education - preferably a four year degree - to "succeed." Yes, mainstream media, nursing recruiters, etc. are pushing a false nursing job shortage out there. (Although, honestly, I haven't heard nearly as much about it over the last year in the media?) But I don't see how that is any different from the same outlets also stating that a four year degree is necessary for a basic, entry level position or any different from my sister's career counselor telling her something that is blatantly false.

This isn't about history majors or nursing majors. It's about all majors. There's a ton of money tied up in government incentives to churn out grads of all stripes. Back to work/retraining programs are also big in the hospitality and technology industries, which have also suffered major downturns in the poor economy. For-profit colleges churn out plenty of grads with useless degrees in IT, teaching, and legal-type areas. Community college graduates - esp. those with technology-related degrees - are finding that a bachelor's degree is required for entry level positions.

All employers reduce profit when they treat and pay their employers decently, obviously.

"All employers reduce profit when they treat and pay their employers decently, obviously."

This is not true, some employers have found treating and paying their employees decently attracts better employees which results in higher profits through either (or both) more productive employees (in any of several ways) or avoiding the costs associated with crappy employees.

I agree with the rest of your post. It is like cosmetics, home ownership, and band in grade school.

Cosmetics (all types, including teeth whitening and hair coloring) make people look better compared to people who who don't do them. But once everyone is doing them, we have the same range of attractiveness that we had when no one was doing them except now we are spending billions of dollars per year and umpteen hours.

Home ownership and band in elementary school and college educations are associated with many benefits but the politicians and educators often forget that many of those benefits are the result of the traits that lead to them as much or probably more than anything else about them.

Specializes in Forensic Psych.

I think publicly funded schools (perhaps just community colleges?) actually do have to answer for the number of nurses they're training, at least in Texas.

I was speaking to our DON about the job crunch and the flood of nurses and she told me every year they have to evaluate how many of their students actually attained jobs in the field and adjust the number of seats based on the findings. My program was prepared to cut seats (we have 40 spots per year) but found that almost all students who were actively looking were employed within a year. Fewer and fewer are finding employment in hospitals (we're an ADN program) but the employment is still there.

I will say this: nursing is stupid. Looking around at other health professions like PT/PTAs, RT, MD who tightly control the market (limiting spots in programs/hospitalsto keep demand high), they are so much better off. I don't know how our boards let this chaos happen, but now us newbies are paying the price for greed and panic. The powers that be could have put CONTROLLED effort into upping interest in the nursing field and avoided this free-for-all. Say what you want, but there should be NO Everest or Devry RN programs. There should be no clinical spots available for unaccredited programs which would, of course, make them non-existent. Programs shouldn't be opening in this environment where clinical time is almost impossible to secure. Students are doing clinicals in every place BUT hospitals due to there being too many programs with too many students.

Our profession is better than that.

And I didn't read responses, so sorry for any redundancy :)

i look at it this way:

1)You have those who want to go into nursing no matter what: shortage or no shortage, this is my dream job, this is what I want to do-dam what anyone else says, media says

2) Nursing is ok, Id rather much study anthropogly because I find people and culture fascinating, however I know the odds of finding a job in anthrolopgy (without going for a masters) are slim to none so I will go with the "safe" major-nursing. (Don't mean to pick on anthro majors, just using that as an example)

3) The days where one could get hired right out of college regardless of degree (because the employer was willing to train the grad) seem to be less. Yes maybe your cousin with the Socioloy degree who graduated in early 2000s, late 90s got hired for some office/business/cubical type job and he is doing a fine job (because again employers are willing to train)-that is no longer the case. The employer can now be picky, why waste resources training when I can just hire one of the many accounting, business, finance grads etc...? So as in case 2 why take a chance in majoring in something else, I will just for Nursing because that is where the jobs are

And of course you have the media hyping nursing like there is no tomrrow (though that shift may change to IT soon) adds to the influx of nursing and prenursing students. There is no doubt it is bloody tough out there for most college grads (regardless of major) entry level postions require 2-3 years of expereince, even getting unpaid internships is incredibly diffcult and working that job you had in high school, post college seems to be the norm- hence many are going to nursing because it is the closest thing they can see to "guarnteed" employment

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