Rasmussen College RN Degree

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I am hoping to become a nurse as part of my midlife crisis of now becoming a single mom. I left college in 2002 to be a stay at home mom. My majors were psych and education and I had mostly A grades. I was told a few of my general education courses could transfer in to save on tuition. However I am not sure if I should try to save the money and skip potentially important subjects like statistics and physics that might have an impact on my critical thinking as a nurse. so my first question is: For prerequisite type subjects that nursing knowledge would be built off of would you save the money and transfer in credit or would it be better to take the course again online and have a review of the material?

The program only takes 18 months and then the BSN bridge is 12 months. The program starts every three months. So hypothetically if I started this upcoming January by the next July I should be working as a RN and taking the online bridge program. The associates degree is only under conditional accreditation but the BSN degree is fully accredited, so I think I want to continue my education so I can pursue employment as a civilians not a base or at a VA hospital for my or personal reasons. Given that goal should I even consider the conditionally accreditation for the associates program knowing I will have to go on to become a BSN to work on a base?

Local programs at community and state colleges have one and a half to two years of prerequisites to get on waitlists. I have heard from a few local nursing assistants that they have been on waitlist a for two years for community colleges and the nearest state university with a nursing degree is too far for me to commute. Would the accreditation of a community college be worth waiting three to four years just to start? With my end goal to become a BSN I am not sure the wait would be worth it.

Also I am not sure how to come up with tuition for the private school considering the program cost about twenty grand per year! However after crunching some numbers I believe I would be saving in the long ru if I join the workforce in a year and a half instead of five years. I used an online calculator and am hypothesizing I can have loans one third of the way paid off if I go to the private school by the time I would be starting a public school program. I know everyone speaks of avoiding debt but has anyone found paying off loans to not be an issue once finishing school? Like if y graduated from a private college with a lot of debt did you consider it worth it to start working years before you would have otherwise?

Lastly I know a lot of folks will be critical of the schools low NCLEX pass rate. If I take into consideration that only around seventy eight percent of students pass the program and out of those only 68 percent pass the test, that comes out to fifty something percent of all income students failing to become RN? I am rationalizing the low pass rate to the schools easy admissions process. They only require the TEAS test and seventy percent to be accepted. So I am. Guessing a lot of the students are not prepared for nor aware of the intensity of a university education. However I found classes like statistics and physics to be challenging but doable and never got less than a B in University years ago. I was the type of student that understood that out of lecture studying was when I comprehended the subjects and that lectures e a synopsis of the material to be covered not an end all for my learning. does anyone think I could succeed as a nursing student despite attending a low pass rate school? Has anyone att need a school with easy admissions and done well?nif so what types of differences did you notice in successful students and those who slacked out?

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Any opinions are appreciated, even if you attended a different private school than Rasmussen. As are opinions of those who know students or graduates from other private schools. The opinions of those who have hired graduates of similar programs are especially valuable and to be appreciated.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

It's obvious that you have invested a great deal of effort in determining the best nursing education route to take. I just want to caution you - poor NCLEX results are a huge RED FLAG. Failure to maintain >80% pass rates will jeopardize a program's approval/accreditation status. Loss of accreditation is a catastrophic event for enrolled students who end up graduating from an unaccredited program.

I just took a look at their web site & it indicates that they have applied for ACEN accreditation, but have not yet received it. Online reviews are not very positive re: clinical training sites. It is a for-profit school, so you may want to check out their latest financial information because the Feds are coming down pretty hard on the for-profit schools. The Corinthian conglomerate ceased to exist last year, and ITT bit the dust just a little while back, leaving their enrolled students with very little options.

FYI - here is an extract from a 2012 Senate investigation into for-profit education:

"Rasmussen Colleges, Incorporated (Rasmussen”) has experienced significant enrollment growth yet has little to show for it, as the company has some of the worst student retention rates of any company examined by the committee. At the same time that 63 percent of students are leaving without completing a degree, taxpayers are investing approximately $185 million a year in the company."

In fact, nearly 81% of Rasmussen's revenues come from federal funds. And where does the money go? More than a quarter, 26%, went to profit, while 18.1% was spent on 'marketing.' That's hardly surprising, since it takes a lot of pitching (448 recruiters - 1 for every 38 students in 2010 - to be exact) to find people willing to spend $39,432 on an AA in business administration at Rasmussen's Minnesota campus, when the same degree from a local community college runs only $7,264.

Hopefully, things have improved since then.

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Specializes in ICU.

That's an awful lot of money. Just a little advice, don't go off of rumors about schools. Go straight to the source. See what the requirements are to get in the program and how long it takes. Do these friends have the grades needed? What were their entrance exam scores? There are a lot of factors.

No accreditation and low pass rates are huge red flags. Huge. Do employers hire their graduates?

I applaud the thought you have put into this, but there is much more. Have you seen the amount of for profit schools that have recently been shut down by the Dept of Education this past month? Thousands of students nationwide have been left in debt with no degree due to these schools and their deceptive, predatory tactics.

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Specializes in nursing education.

Pass Rates for any institution are the primary guide to your success on NCLEX which is the metric that matters. Also, I attended community college for my ADN and Univ. of Phoenix for my BSN (and MSN, but that was a scholarship). I took the student loans and am still paying them off. Do I care-NO. It is just a bill I budget for monthly and student loans have some of the lowest interest rates of any loan you will ever get. Also, use cash for other things like cars, etc. save your money there. Also, look at how often do students fail and have to repeat courses. This means you are paying more for what should have been achievable the first time. I do say apply for scholarships. As you are a new single mom you may qualify for displaced homemaker assistance. Take help where you can find it. 

But that pass rate matters more than anything. <80% automatic NO GO.

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