Although nursing was considered a "good" job when I started, it was nothing like what is being promoted today. After the economy crashed, I have seen an explosion in nursing program advertisements. There are new nursing programs opening all the time and I have recently seen programs advertising getting a degree faster than any other program. Personally, I think this is bad for nursing. Because of federal financial aid, these schools can and do recruit anyone who wants a job; not anyone who wants to be a nurse. Not only does this diminish the nursing talent that we have, it also floods the market. Just take a look at the unemployed nurses posting on here constantly. We have all seen this with other professions that were once "hot". People rush into them, hate what they're doing, flood the market, and move on. I, for one, do not want to see the for-profit American Colleges destroy yet another profession. Yes we need more nurses in the future, but we should limit the number of nursing programs to the projected growth. Is this protectionism? Perhaps. But I think that a little bit of nursing protectionism is okay in the face of a large amount of "big education" greed.
Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
here are some recent headlines:
outlook is bleak even for recent college graduates - nytimes.com (may 2011), study shows 85% of new college grads move back in with parents (may 2011), college grads upended by unemployment(may 2011). this isn't a nursing specific issue. should colleges shut their doors knowing that many of their grads will be unemployed? and saying there are no jobs is an equal overstatement to those saying there's a nursing shortage. look at the new grads forum and yes, there are grads getting hired. there are still jobs. can you walk out with three waiting offers and signing bonuses? probably not, when at one time you could. again, you decide how you want to educate yourself, a college provides that means to your education and it goes from there. for people in any field- sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
i'm not trying to be coldhearted. twelve years ago i finished my master's degree and thought i was starting my career. singular. now i find that unemployment is likely around the corner. now i'm on to career #2. will that one work out better? i hope so, but maybe not. either way, i'll have to take what comes. that's life.
To the people who want a free market and lack of government interference, then I say to you the government can keep its out of regulation as soon as they stop ruining the free market by taxpayer underwritten loans and grants.
I know that their have been rumors that the community college that my husband is currently attending nursing school is considering decreasing admissions to once per year rather than twice as another community college about 45 mins away has started a program recently and they don't want to flood the market. The issue is that for profit school would never make such a consideration as at the end of the day they, like any business, have to consider the bottom line and reducing or eliminating a program for whatever reason, so long as there are interested students, means they are losing money.
Exactly. Nearly half of nursing schools in our area have opened in the past 10 years. Only one of those is a non-profit. We have several schools that ONLY teach nursing classes, one of them starting NINE DIFFERENT RN PROGRAMS PER YEAR... that is just a single for-profit school in Denver. Making money hand-over-fist, no alternative source of income, they ultimately do not care about anything but recruiting students and getting their money.
The problem with waiting for a market correction in this market is that the market won't correct until LONG after everyone has been hurt and hurting for a while. Everyone has been hurting for a while; where is the correction? The reason is the market remains skewed is the availability of free money sought after by profit-hungry schools (and industry seeking a labor supply glut) who advertise and pay shill journalists to write about how much nurses are needed. The big lie is repeated by the media until becomes "common knowledge." Job desperate people and wide eyed 19 year olds don't put as much investigation into these claims coming from multiple sources, a deceit. Maybe they would if there wasn't free money. Government backed grants and loans isn't a bad idea, but handing them out without regulation of industry, school AND nursing, is ludicrous!
To the people who want a free market and lack of government interference, then I say to you the government can keep its out of regulation as soon as they stop ruining the free market by taxpayer underwritten loans and grants.
Exactly. Nearly half of nursing schools in our area have opened in the past 10 years. Only one of those is a non-profit. We have several schools that ONLY teach nursing classes, one of them starting NINE DIFFERENT RN PROGRAMS PER YEAR... that is just a single for-profit school in Denver. Making money hand-over-fist, no alternative source of income, they ultimately do not care about anything but recruiting students and getting their money.
The problem with waiting for a market correction in this market is that the market won't correct until LONG after everyone has been hurt and hurting for a while. Everyone has been hurting for a while; where is the correction? The reason is the market remains skewed is the availability of free money sought after by profit-hungry schools (and industry seeking a labor supply glut) who advertise and pay shill journalists to write about how much nurses are needed. The big lie is repeated by the media until becomes "common knowledge." Job desperate people and wide eyed 19 year olds don't put as much investigation into these claims coming from multiple sources, a deceit. Maybe they would if there wasn't free money. Government backed grants and loans isn't a bad idea, but handing them out without regulation of industry, school AND nursing, is ludicrous!
As someone who worked super hard and is entering a Nursing Program in a few months, this is kind of disheartening to hear. In ANY profession, their are people who enter for the right reasons and the wrong reasons. I personally believe that I am entering for the right reasons and have fought really hard to make it to this point. Many nursing programs aren't just accepting ANYONE. My school alone had 2000 applicants and only took 40. My family is making every sacrifice in the world for me to make it through this program. This won't be easy, but for me, it will be worth it. Does that mean I am better than someone who was born with a silverspoon and doing Nursing because they want to wear cute little scrubbies and perhaps meet Dr. McDreamy like in popular hospital shows. Perhaps, but its not for me to judge. Many students who were taking the prereq classes and was going after nursing to get a piece of the media pie were sadly given a reality check when they couldn't pass A&P or Micro. Anyways, call me naive, which I sure to a degree I am, but I refuse to let my own insecurity nor anyone elses get in the way of what I am striving for. I plan on being the best nurse I can be and represent this profession honorably. I know there are others like me, and those people, you should welcome with open arms. If you get a big boom of dedicated nurses, its worth the growth in my opinion.
To the people who want a free market and lack of government interference, then I say to you the government can keep its out of regulation as soon as they stop ruining the free market by taxpayer underwritten loans and grants.
Exactly. Nearly half of nursing schools in our area have opened in the past 10 years. Only one of those is a non-profit. We have several schools that ONLY teach nursing classes, one of them starting NINE DIFFERENT RN PROGRAMS PER YEAR... that is just a single for-profit school in Denver. Making money hand-over-fist, no alternative source of income, they ultimately do not care about anything but recruiting students and getting their money.
The problem with waiting for a market correction in this market is that the market won't correct until LONG after everyone has been hurt and hurting for a while. Everyone has been hurting for a while; where is the correction? The reason is the market remains skewed is the availability of free money sought after by profit-hungry schools (and industry seeking a labor supply glut) who advertise and pay shill journalists to write about how much nurses are needed. The big lie is repeated by the media until becomes "common knowledge." Job desperate people and wide eyed 19 year olds don't put as much investigation into these claims coming from multiple sources, a deceit. Maybe they would if there wasn't free money. Government backed grants and loans isn't a bad idea, but handing them out without regulation of industry, school AND nursing, is ludicrous!
Exactly. There is a fairly decent documentary calling "college inc" that addresses this issue. Although well-intentioned, the advent of government-backed loans is essentially turning education into a sub-prime market, much like housing. The colleges convince kids they should enter this program or that program to get a job, charge them an outrageous fee, and leave them high and dry with 80K in non-dischargeable debt!
Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
Much like the subprime lending market for housing, people cannot be ignorant of their circumstances and possible outcomes and then blame someone else for the position in which they end up. People need to make themselves educated about the possible (nothing is guaranteed) outcomes and determine whether putting themselves into debt for a degree is going to be worth it in the end. There is not a single field that you could point someone towards that would guarantee employment. If a college or lender is telling you there is, it's their fault for painting an inaccurate picture, but it's not their fault that you took them at their word. No one is responsible for the decisions we make other than ourselves. I chose a field many years ago that I thought would be secure. Well, years later it's not. Is that the fault of my advisors at the time telling me that I was going to be guaranteed employment? Nope. Life changes. If schools start closing their doors now due to a downturn in immediate employment, will the long term ramifications of that decision be worse? Who knows. Until that time, people have to make the most informed decisions they can, knowing that sometimes even those don't work out.
Personal responsibility. People have to make themselves educated about the choices they are making. Why would schools turn away paying students because they may be entering a limited job market? By that reasoning, anyone that wants to be a bachelor's of general studies major, music performance major, or even psychology, should be cautioned that their employment opportunities are limited based on their choice of major. Fields that were quite well off 10 years ago are no longer hiring and there are likely fields that have barely any opportunities today that will be booming with jobs five years from now. Life is a series of choices, you make them and sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't.
As for judging the students that schools are attracting. Nursing doesn't have to be your "passion" in order for you to do very well in your career. I get a little annoyed when I hear that someone in the class is "taking the spot" of someone that has dreamed of nursing their whole life. The people that are qualified, get in, and sometimes there's a lottery component so there is some luck involved. And there will be some luck involved in finding employment after school, just as there is in any field.
We don't need the government deciding for us what we should or should not pursue as educational opportunities.
Your first paragraph is "spot on" as my Aussie friends say. I am looking in getting my Master's in nursing but am also considering teaching visually impaired children (long story, but I'm a school nurse the educational system appeals to me). There is a critical need for TVI's - but yet the program that is nearest to me is fighting to keep its doors open, to the extent that they have gone mostly online.
There are plenty of jobs out there that are in high demand - OT, PT and their Associate prepared assistants, speech and language therapists, etc etc and those are just the ones I am aware of from working in the school system. But finding programs is the hard part.
The way I look at it has less to do with regulating the number of nurses entering the job market and more to do with the predatory practices of these for-profit "colleges." We can educate people about the realities of the job market but when all is said and done we have to let people make their own choices and deal with the consequences.
The problem is that a lot of these for-profit schools are drawing people in, encouraging them to assume massive debt in federal loans -- which they can not hope to pay back and which they cannot discharge in bankruptcy.
I have seen so many people who ask the question of which is a better choice: to hold out on a wait list on a university or community college where the tuition is cheap or to take out loans and dive into a for profit program that costs $30-40,000 so that they can get that "guaranteed" job faster and start raking in that promised fantastic paycheck.
Since for-profits like American University and Concorde are actually exploiting the federal student loan programs I don't see why the government shouldn't take a closer look at that issue. yes people have the right to take out loans to fund their education, they have the right to choose their profession. But abusing the federal loan programs affect all of us and these schools should be held accountable.
Your first paragraph is "spot on" as my Aussie friends say. I am looking in getting my Master's in nursing but am also considering teaching visually impaired children (long story, but I'm a school nurse the educational system appeals to me). There is a critical need for TVI's - but yet the program that is nearest to me is fighting to keep its doors open, to the extent that they have gone mostly online.
There are plenty of jobs out there that are in high demand - OT, PT and their Associate prepared assistants, speech and language therapists, etc etc and those are just the ones I am aware of from working in the school system. But finding programs is the hard part.
and do you know why it is harder to find the PT programs, because they have apparently, taken some control.
and this small specialized off shoot of nursing is on its way to becoming a "profession" well before we ever will.
and do you know why it is harder to find the PT programs, because they have apparently, taken some control.
and this small specialized off shoot of nursing is on its way to becoming a "profession" well before we ever will.
I don't know. According to Labor Statistics, there are 185,000 PT's working in the US. There are 220 accredited PT programs. There are 2.6 million RN's working in the US - AACN has 660 accredited schools, NLNAC has maybe 1000. And I am sure many are accredited by both. So even if there are 2000 accredited nursing school (just BSN or ADN, not higher level degrees), that puts the percent of schools to actual practitioner pretty much in the ball park between the two.
I suppose we could require a doctorate for all nurse (tongue planted very firmly in cheek!)
It gets worse - in our area the nursing schools cannot afford instructors for the clinical rotations so they want our employees to "precept", without any compensation, unless the hospital decides to pick up the tab. They tell us we SHOULD pay an Educator to do clinical rotations or pay preceptors as ultimately it benefits us to have staff. But we hire less than a dozen new grads a year so we do not feel compelled to finance what we consider to be THEIR problem.
I don't know. According to Labor Statistics, there are 185,000 PT's working in the US. There are 220 accredited PT programs. There are 2.6 million RN's working in the US - AACN has 660 accredited schools, NLNAC has maybe 1000. And I am sure many are accredited by both. So even if there are 2000 accredited nursing school (just BSN or ADN, not higher level degrees), that puts the percent of schools to actual practitioner pretty much in the ball park between the two.
I suppose we could require a doctorate for all nurse (tongue planted very firmly in cheek!)
You have made my point for me, less schools=less graduates.
JBMmom, MSN, NP
4 Articles; 2,537 Posts
here are some recent headlines:
outlook is bleak even for recent college graduates - nytimes.com (may 2011), study shows 85% of new college grads move back in with parents (may 2011), college grads upended by unemployment (may 2011). this isn't a nursing specific issue. should colleges shut their doors knowing that many of their grads will be unemployed? and saying there are no jobs is an equal overstatement to those saying there's a nursing shortage. look at the new grads forum and yes, there are grads getting hired. there are still jobs. can you walk out with three waiting offers and signing bonuses? probably not, when at one time you could. again, you decide how you want to educate yourself, a college provides that means to your education and it goes from there. for people in any field- sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
i'm not trying to be coldhearted. twelve years ago i finished my master's degree and thought i was starting my career. singular. now i find that unemployment is likely around the corner. now i'm on to career #2. will that one work out better? i hope so, but maybe not. either way, i'll have to take what comes. that's life.