opinions please?

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I want to become a nurse, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea with the amount of debt I have.

I have a bachelors degree in business with $35k in student loans. I want to be a nurse, but it seems a BSN is the way to go and I would need to take student loans to go back to school, $40k. Am I crazy to take on that much for a nursing degree? I considered ADN first and get BSN later because most hospitals in my area say they accept associates. However, I'm afraid by the time I finish school, that will change. Honestly, what would you do?

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I don't think it will change in the amount of time it would take you to finish your associates. People have been saying that for years. Personally, it makes a lot more sense to go for your ADN rather than your BSN with that amount of debt already. It's just not going to be worth it to be a nurse with 75k in debt, IMO. I don't know how it is everywhere, but in my town, every hospital hires ADN's and BSN's, most of the people I graduated with in May have jobs already and have ADN's. Also, the BSN nurses only get paid 50 cents more an hour than the ADN's. Plus, most hospitals will pay for your education once you are in if you want to get your BSN after you are already working as an RN.

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Specializes in PICU, Sedation/Radiology, PACU.

Since you already have a bachelor's degree in another field, you would be a candidate for an accelerated BSN program, which lasts 12-18 months. It's going to be pretty pricy, but will serve you better than an ADN.

However, you should think about whether it's a good time to go back to school. You already have debt, and the market for nurses without experience is extremely competitive, depending on your area. You could get your BSN and still not be able to find a job for several months. And you would have even more debt than you do now. If your business degree allows you to make a good living, I'd recommend you stick with that until the job prospects start to look better for new nurses.

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Specializes in CC, MS, ED, Clinical Research.

I'd pay off the debt or at least tackle half of it first. More school isn't always the answer to debt, but if your heart is in nursing at least promise yourself you will move to an area hiring nurses if your current community doesn't. We're in a depression and people who can be mobile in the job hunt will fare the best, but it's an employers market right now. Hospitals have chosen to go lean on hiring. Check Ashley's suggestion cost wise against cost of ADN. BSN will always carry more weight over an ADN in most areas of the country. Good Luck.

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Specializes in School Nursing.

In this job economy, there is no way I would consider taking on additional student loan debt to change careers. I had a bachelor's in business (student loan debt free) and did an accelerated BSN program from which I have about $35k in loan debt. The hiring climate when I decided to do this was much, much different than it was now. I had two job offers before graduating and was able to get into my chosen specialty within 6 months. These days new grads are lucky to get offer #1 within 6 months of hunting.

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

I would not incur any more debt than is absolutely necessary. You can always change your mind later.

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Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

Beef tastes better than chicken. That is my opinion.

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Specializes in psych, addictions, hospice, education.

How about checking with state schools? Lots of them have great programs for both ASN and BSN programs, and they cost a huge amount less than private schools.

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The problem is I never used my bachelors in business. I graduated 9 years ago and got pregnant right before graduating so I took a work from home job to raise my kids. Now I'm ready to start a career because my work at home job just isn't paying the bills anymore (never get raises). I could go into business (which I now know I have no interest in), but who is going to hire me with zero experience in the field and having graduated 9 years ago? I would have to start at the very bottom, making half what I make now. The income factor aside, the medical field is what I could really see myself doing, but the cost of it and the economy is making this decision difficult.

The school I want to go to is a state school. The private ones are much more. The accelerated program is private and is $54k for one year. I doubt I could do the program with a family and work.

I live in a fairly large area with four hospitals and many urgent care clinics and surgery centers that always have lots of job ads on their site for nurses, but there are also many nursing schools in the area. So I don't know what to do!

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Specializes in psych, addictions, hospice, education.

The state school is 54K for a year in the accelerated program? Wow, that's way more than schools around here. Have you looked into other state schools?

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Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.

54K for ONE year?!? Geez, I didn't pay that much for my brother's tuition at Yale!

There are lots of university hospitals that offer an education benefit once you are on full time status. I haven't heard of a hospital paying for your ENTIRE tuition, but I know that they will pay either a percentage or a set amount per class/credit hour. You can also look into state scholarships for nursing students. These can be hard to find initially. When I was in school, I found out through word of mouth that my state offered a $1,500/semester scholarship if you kept your GPA at 3.0 or above.

Another relatively unknown factoid is that there are a PLETHORA of scholarships and grants that nursing schools offer. For example, my nursing school offered a scholarship for students that lived in a certain county; another for a student that expressed an interest and wrote an essay about oncology nursing; one for a student who had the most "thank you" letters from a pt/family, and yet another for the most improved student of the year. It wouldn't hurt to call the admissions office at the schools you are interested in to ask what sort of scholarships they offer. You may qualify for scholarships and grants that you had no idea even existed!

Sometimes university hospitals will contract with nursing schools for "tuition forgiveness". This is how I paid for the bulk of my nursing school. I signed a contract with a university hospital agreeing to work for them for 2 years, and upon completion of 2 years, every single cent of my tuition was free and clear. That was 13 years ago. I don't know if these types of contracts even exist anymore.

In your situation, my gut feeling is that you should go ahead with the ADN route and use your employer's benefits to help you pay for a BSN.

Do some research and see what you come up with. The more info you have, the more confident you will be in your decision.

I wish you the best of luck, and hope to welcome you to the nursing world in short order:)

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No the 54k was for a private university for the accelerated program. It's three semesters straight through the year for 18k each semester. The state school was the one I was interested in and that's around 15k per year. I will definitely look into scholarships. That is something I did not think of. Thanks for the help everyone!

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