I am sure many people have heard of the social issue/ cause "school to prison pipeline" that many civic groups are trying to eradicate. I am here to draw attention to a similar related problem , the college to welfare pipeline.
Due to an intricate , intimate, and covert relationship between big government politicos, higher education, Bureau of Occupational affairs, and the Federal/ State Department of labor, we have a serious student debt problem in the nursing field that is only going to get worse. Nurses need to wake up and take note of the LPN to RN hoax, and the RN-BSN hoax. These are all well publicized , propaganda driven falsities that are crushing nurses into debt driven higher education requirements. These propaganda driven requirements brainwash nurses into believing that without the extra education, they will not be employed.
And to a certain degree, they are correct, but its important for nurses to see the pitfall, before taking the dive. There is little to no difference in responsibility or pay rate from LPN to RN, and most RNs are taking the lower wage, just to have a job. There is zero difference in job responsibility or pay from RN to BSN, but the dollars spent to get there are substantial. The RN to BSN pipeline is a grotesque narrative that is being sung, for the sole purpose of enriching nursing schools. The NCLEX exam is identical for RNs and BSNs, the scope of practice is identical, and so are all the pay rates. A staff nurse is a staff nurse, is a staff nurse, too.
So why go for your BSN? Its because the hospitals and other various 24/ 7 institutional care providers say so. They have all built a united wall against the ADN RN. We are becoming an extinct species, because no one will hire us. Is the BSN a job guarantee? Of course not. Is any higher education a job guarantee? Nope. Big government politicos want student debt to skyrocket , so that they can fly in and save everyone with free bailouts, loan forgiveness, and thousands of more votes on election day.
May the buyer beware, until that utopia comes to fruition. In the meantime, take a serious look inward into the pitfalls, tricks and traps of higher education in the nursing field. The powers that be want you to keep jumping hurdles , spending more and more money, hoping to get hired, and falling deeper and deeper into debt, during the process. The higher you jump, the more you spend, and the less you earn. For many nurses who fell for these schemes, the financial devastation has been both swift and severe.
Interesting topic and I'm sorry OP that so many respondents piled on you for awhile there. You are absolutely right, nobody is living your reality except you.
Where I live not having a BSN is in no way a barrier to finding work, not now anyway. Both major health systems are expanding and hiring at a breakneck pace with no BSN required. But I am well aware that's not the case in many areas and relocation to where the jobs are isn't an option for a lot of people.
The push to bigger and better college degrees and expensive certifications to land a job is understandable in a tight, competitive market but that same push to long time employees that are forced to spend a lot of money on a higher degree they don't need to perform the exact same job they are already doing and making not a red cent more despite the considerable out of pocket expense is shameful.
There are too many degree mills that are allowed to exist pretty much for the sole purpose of taking money from hard working nurses that are forced to get a degree they don't need or want to stay employed. I see ads on my social media feeds, my search engines, through emails and yes even on this site for RN to BSN and even RN to MSN programs where the catch phrases are "work at you own pace" and frequently "no clinical site required." These programs were created to meet the needs of a working nurse that can't devote all their time to a traditional nursing program while working. Some of these programs may actually be OK, most are not.
If the programs are regionally and nationally accredited and you earn a BSN from it, then it’s not a diploma mill. The work at your own pace schools are competency based programs and are actually great for people with previous degrees because you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
While NP schools should have clinical, an RN-BSN should not need it and MSN In non clinical specialties (education, leadership) don’t either although they should have some sort of practicum.
No one should be attending any non accredited programs, but if it’s accredited, it’s not a scam school
The entire post...expert level perfect, and so happy to see someone who gets it, and is willing to put it out there, as it is, political correctness be damned. I do not think I could have said it any better. The hospitals are hiring the brand new BSNs who will work cheap, keep their mouths shut, do as they are told, and NEVER upset the apple cart. 20 years ago, I too, was one of those little bo-peeps, but as an ADN.
I am also trying to go back to my first profession, 20 years later be damned, its hard to do, but I am not giving up. Nursing has become physically, financially and emotionally impossible, and not worth the pittance of pay you get for the mountain of stress you endure.
I am going to have to chime in and agree with JenPripsu in some aspects---but I will disagree in others.
If he/she had a job prior to graduation--that is not only possible, but it happens every day in some of the ADN programs in the south.
Before anyone goes patting themselves on the back "too hard" for their skill as a -1 year experience nurse--the hospitals do this (at least in the south this is how it goes) in cahoots with the instructors. They bring in RN managers from "all specialties" claiming that any student will be considered for any specialty, just bring your resume. They even provide lunch.
There is the hard sell. All day long--the nurses rave about where they work and why the students need to choose their facility/system. Then it's "line up, give us your resumes and you'll get 5 minutes with YOUR CHOICE of specialty!"
When the line starts for ---ICU or ED or Cath Lab or PACU---those nurse managers need to "be back at the hospital right away" BUT THEY HAVE YOUR RESUME ? And who are you stuck talking with? Med Surg. LTC floors. The students don't know better and they think---well, I can "get my foot in the door" with Med Surg and then transfer around! And the RN Mgrs feeeeeeeeeeeeed this delusion.
The starting salaries are also not published here---it's the lowest rung for -1 year nurses. You start out at (in some areas...) $18/hr. In the South it was collusion between all of the big systems to lock in one rate. $21/hr. You can't go anywhere else because there is nowhere to go without pulling up stakes.
Then you start your long slog. The requirement of the BSN. Within---4 years at some, 7 at others. "WE'LL HELP YOU!" Yeah. Uh huh. They'll pay for ONE CLASS PER YEAR, after you already front the money---and they tax the reimbursement.
It's all a recruitment tool to acquire the cheapest, youngest, most inexperienced workers so that they can exploit the best years of their lives....and keep costs to a minimum.
7 years goes by and any somewhat observant nurse will notice that they're not really going to get anywhere with that BSN---no compensation for that degree, no real additional opportunities (because the goalposts get magically moved! Now the requirement for that CN3 position is an MSN with 10 years of CRITICAL CARE experience! for a job in Endoscopy.)---and the "ability to transfer between specialties"? PIPEDREAM.
Did anyone know that "Magnet Status" and JHACO are all VOLUNTARY for hospitals to be a part of? These entities have zero teeth when it comes to actual enforcement of any of their "recommendations".
It's a club. Just like the schools, facilities and yes...the insurers...because they all have bottom lines and portfolios to keep in the black---they push these agendas and simply continue to move the goalposts until YOU decide that you've caught on and aren't playing anymore.
Unfortunately....there's a lineup of 22yo students, being bamboozled in their senior year of "critical care" being told that their lifelong dream of being a badass trauma nurse is about to come true....but you have to jump through just this one hoop first.
When you get into nursing---then the real bulls#t starts. You want that $.25 raise? Did you read 25 scholarly articles, publish with 7 periodicals, do at least 5 unit based projects, volunteer your time feeding seniors' goldfish, never actually took a vacation or a day off?
Oh. You did all that? Well---you weren't "collegiate" enough. You aren't really that well liked amongst the cliquey crowd (because you're really spending so much of your waking life doing PROJECTS for the "unit"). You didn't "help out enough " (where is the metric for this?)
There are always hairs that can be split to keep you right in your place. Low paid, overworked---and if you DARE to open your mouth---you KNOW you will never get anywhere.
Travelers have it alot easier. We aren't required to have a BSN, although I do. I also have a BS in another field---and I am---as we speak---in the hiring/background process of returning to that field. I cannot wait. I will never look back. And I get >50 emails per day from "recruiters" willing to buy me lunch---I was flown to a facility 3000 miles away, put up in a great hotel/spa for 2 days, given a rental car---
and if anybody is curious about that Cath Lab job--and what they straight faced told me was going to be required (because OUR nurses have never had a problem with it!)---I'll rewrite it in another response.
The BSN idea was the brainchild of an paper that SUGGESTED---among other things, but those were ignored--that "errors in the OR may be decreased when the staff is BSN trained".
The insurers, facilities, schools and other money making enterprises glommed onto this and RAN with it.
The "ANA" , the AACN and other "authorities" that "credential" nurses have also jumped on this bandwagon in order to monetize EVERYTHING. Fear is a huge motivator.
You want a job? You do what we tell you to do--you spend money you don't have, for jobs that may or may not exist, for potential that is used as a carrot as a recruitment/retention tool....because....you are trapped in the debt cycle that you are in....because you want a job.
I have worked in many facilities. The only advancement I ever saw among colleagues was when that colleague was so far up the orifice of those above them---and they were willing to sell their soul (spying, tattling, sabotaging, bullying) in order to get ahead. Some had the education yes. But I saw a magnificentyoung man at a Level 1 trauma center--I would have thrown myself in front of a bus to make sure his shifts went smoothly because he was a LEADER.
He worked his orifice off, did the education all the way to MSN. Did the projects. Was on the committees. But he wouldn't do one thing. He wouldn't socialize outside of work with these partiers in management. He was a family man.
He was more than qualified to do a CN4 job--which translated into "Supervisor"--right above shift charge. He applied for this job and was told "you have done everything we required....but.....we think that your 'quality' of Charge experience (at this hospital) is not really....uh......quality enough."
They bamboozled him into doing a horrible thing. They couldn't cover the night shift Charge position---and they promised him---you go from days to nights and do that job for a year---and we'll give you the CN4 position.
He did.
They didn't. They pulled the rug right out from under him. Bald faced and unapologetic.
That's when this young man took his considerable talent and leadership===and told them to shove it up their collective behinds. We all cheered him on. And most of us LEFT that facility soon afterwards.
This is a club. You aren't in it. The ones in it---lock it up jealously because they aren't about to allow "just anybody" in.
If you go to work and just do your job? Be prepared to go nowhere and be the first to get replaced or forced out.
This is the state of nursing.
I disagree wholeheartedly that "all professions" are like this. They're not. I am living breathing proof that they're not. I am mid life---haven't done my previous work in years (I did it as a PRN last time in 2014)---but I was smart enough to keep my certifications and CEUs up to date. I make MORE THAN I DO AS A NURSE, in my previous profession.
Starting salary for a new grad nurse is around $42K before taxes. My starting salary in my former profession is $55K. Raises are merit based. Hard facts? Raise. More education? Raise. Certifications? Raise. There is no "You need to perform, to our board of 5 super secret panel members' satisfaction, the 45 dimensions of our opinion of what a good nurse really ought to be."
I make six figures as a travel nurse but there are tax repercussions and pitfalls to that, plus you're going into the most toxic environments you've never even dreamed possible. I think it's so fricking worth it to leave this garbage behind and take the job I am being offered at $92K---living near my family---in a decently priced mid sized city---and never....EVER having to write one more 15 page "justification" for the facility allowing me to darken their doorstep.
If you have debt---I feel badly. I did schooling on the cheap. I didn't fall for the "YOU HAVE TO HAVE MAJOR SCHOOL THAT COSTS MORE THAN AN ISLAND IN THE CARRIBEAN ON YOUR TRANSCRIPT or you can't be a decent nurse". I am not competitive that way. Which is why facilities don't like "older, more experienced"---they want young, inexperienced and easily manipulated---they like it that it will take you years to catch on. Years that they will use to break you.
Im just curious....in another post you are praising the VA and all the stuff you have to do but now you are saying its a racket? I am confused.
Again. I am giving this post a five star rating. I have been in nursing for decades at all levels. In all sizes of facilities from 100 bed rural, to gazillion bed teaching centers and this posting has truth, evidence based facts throughout. I have lived and witnessed every example she wrote about. I have lived the inner workings of recruitment both in medical facilities and schools, she is right on and factual in her writings. Until we as nurses stand together and act as well as just voicing our concerns on forums, this stuff will continue. I try to dissuade anyone from pursuing anything in medicine because of the travesties I have seen and lived. I wish I had a fall back career and could leave nursing altogether. I have loved it all my working life but despise how the “suits” have tainted it.
If the programs are regionally and nationally accredited and you earn a BSN from it, then it’s not a diploma mill. The work at your own pace schools are competency based programs and are actually great for people with previous degrees because you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
While NP schools should have clinical, an RN-BSN should not need it and MSN In non clinical specialties (education, leadership) don’t either although they should have some sort of practicum.
No one should be attending any non accredited programs, but if it’s accredited, it’s not a scam school
Being accredited does not make it a good program. In my opinion a good program would actually teach you something useful in your current job when the only reason you are pursuing the degree is because your job requires it.
Writing tons of papers in proper APA format isn't in the least bit useful to the vast majority of working bedside nurses. Performing group assignments where your grade depends on people you don't know and haven't physically met pulling their weight doesn't teach anything useful about "teamwork" for a nurse that practices real teamwork every day on the job. Every single nurse I know that has done an online RN to BSN program complained of this very thing. Not a one, not a single one has claimed to actually learn anything useful from the program they attended. That's why I said some of these programs may be worth the cost, but I have yet to hear a first hand account of one that is.
Being accredited does not make it a good program. In my opinion a good program would actually teach you something useful in your current job when the only reason you are pursuing the degree is because your job requires it.
Writing tons of papers in proper APA format isn't in the least bit useful to the vast majority of working bedside nurses. Performing group assignments where your grade depends on people you don't know and haven't physically met pulling their weight doesn't teach anything useful about "teamwork" for a nurse that practices real teamwork every day on the job. Every single nurse I know that has done an online RN to BSN program complained of this very thing. Not a one, not a single one has claimed to actually learn anything useful from the program they attended. That's why I said some of these programs may be worth the cost, but I have yet to hear a first hand account of one that is.
I didn’t say it was useful or necessary to practice. Or that every accredited program is a “good” program. I was saying that if it’s accredited it’s not a diploma mill. Just because you don’t find the program useful to your career aspirations doesn’t make it a diploma mill. I agree about the RN-BSN, which is why I’m skipping it altogether and getting an MSN
One that did the BSN without getting the ASN first
All BSN programs should offer some type of clinical training throughout the program. How people are allowed to get a BSN without getting some type of clinical training with it boggles my mind. Even if they are already working as a nurse, the BSN program should improve their clinical skills.
One that did the BSN without getting the ASN first
All BSN programs should offer some type of clinical training throughout the program. How people are allowed to get a BSN without getting some type of clinical training with it boggles my mind. Even if they are already working as a nurse, the BSN program should improve their clinical skills.
You ommitted to mention the traditional ADN-BSN Bridge Program: "One that did the ASN/ADN, and then did the BSN at a bricks and mortar university - which included a community health clinical and also a clinical preceptorship."
You ommitted to mention the traditional ADN-BSN Bridge Program: "One that did the ASN/ADN and then did the BSN at a bricks and mortar university" which included a community health clinical and sometimes also a clinical preceptorship.
Would the nurse have clinical training all throughout the program?, and it be mandatory, like it is for the Associates of Nursing?
All BSN programs should offer some type of clinical training throughout the program. How people are allowed to get a BSN without getting some type of clinical training with it boggles my mind.
I actually transferred out of my first RN-BSN program which had a clinical component. We basically served lunch trays to seniors. Any clinical component is not enough. It needs to be meaningful and challenging, not just going through the motions. I’d be perfectly fine with being challenged academically and I don’t think a clinical component is something that should be required for working RNs, the only way to truly learn clinical skills is in actual practice. Or simulation.
Would the nurse have clinical training all throughout the program?, and it be mandatory?
Some of the generic BSN students (as distinct from the ADN-BSN Bridge students) told me in their final semesters that they didn't receive much clinical training during their program.
Nurse Magnolia, BSN, RN
213 Posts
If the programs are regionally and nationally accredited and you earn a BSN from it, then it’s not a diploma mill. The work at your own pace schools are competency based programs and are actually great for people with previous degrees because you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
While NP schools should have clinical, an RN-BSN should not need it and MSN In non clinical specialties (education, leadership) don’t either although they should have some sort of practicum.
No one should be attending any non accredited programs, but if it’s accredited, it’s not a scam school