Question about distance ed in CA

Hi there,

I am a pre-nursing student in CA. I am in A/P now and hope to finish my prereqs by the end of summer if all goes well. I am wondering if someone could shed some light on this for me - from what I have read here it seems that California has legislation against distance learning for nursing education? I am not aware of this and would appreciate any insight/details (articles, links etc). If I am correct, do you know if this also applies to pre-requisites - or do they leave that up to the community college? I am planning to apply to the nursing programs at all reasonably close CC.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Julie

It's a bit confusing but, basically, there's no "ban" per se on distance learning in California. It all depends on the situation. The state accepts distance learning for some things, but not others. For example, once you get your ADN, there are approved ADN to BSN and BSN to MSN distance learning programs that the state accepts.

The issue you probably heard about was distance learning at the ADN level. In December, 2003, California disallowed the Excelsior ADN program because it didn't meet the state's clinical requirements. To my knowledge, that was the only ADN distance learning program that was accepted by the state, but that's no longer an option.

As for CC's accepting online courses as pre-reqs, it depends on the individual school. At my school there are pre-reqs like psychology, sociology, etc. you can do online but there aren't any online science pre-req options, mostly because of the lab requirements. However, other schools could be different. You really need to check with the CC you plan to attend, but there may be some distance learning options with at least some pre-reqs.