What is a good attrition rate for nursing school.

Miss Infermiera2b, BSN, RN · Nov 17, 2015

Personally, I think the NCLEX pass rate is more important than the attrition rate. A really good NCLEX pass rate is 95-100%. If a school consistently is making below 80%, they will go on probation and possibly lose accreditation as a nursing school.

honeyforasalteyfish · Nov 17, 2015

Personally, I think the NCLEX pass rate is more important than the attrition rate. A really good NCLEX pass rate is 95-100%. If a school consistently is making below 80%, they will go on probation and possibly lose accreditation as a nursing school.

Thank you.

tech1000 · Nov 19, 2015

My school had a 97% NCLEX pass rate. I felt good about that :) I knew a lot of other grads from private colleges who paid big money for their degrees and failed the NCLEX multiple times, and multiple people came from the same program.

LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN · Nov 20, 2015

Most schools don't advertise their attrition rates; the general consensus in my experience is attrition rates are 50-70 percent; when I went into my PN program, it was about 75 percent; in my BSN program it was about 50 percent.

Both programs I went through had NCLEX rates in the 80s; however, based on my schools' reputations, and with my own reputation as a student I was able to secure a job upon graduation.

elkpark · Nov 21, 2015

IMO, attrition rate is important, and the NCLEX pass rate only means so much without also thinking about the attrition rate. Unscrupulous and unethical schools can use attrition to manipulate their NCLEX pass rates. There are plenty of nursing schools, esp. the proprietary (for-profit) schools, that admit large numbers of students who are not necessarily prepared or equipped to do well in nursing school, take their tuition money most of the way through the program, and then, before graduation, flunk out all but the small number of students the school is confident are going to do well on the NCLEX. People have posted here of schools only graduating 25 or 30 students from an initial group of 100 or so. That's shocking to me.

An attrition rate of 50-75%, as mentioned above, is shocking to me. I remember faculty at my hospital-based diploma school commenting that they had a first-year attrition rate of ~33% each year, mostly because a number of students figured out early on in the program that nursing just wasn't for them, after all. A few students would do poorly enough academically that they would be unable to continue, but that was extremely rare. The school provided faculty assistance, a tutoring program, and everything else possible to help the students succeed. I don't think anyone from my cohort dropped or failed out of my BSN completion program (0% attrition). One student of four in my specialty track in grad school chose to drop out, a 25% rate for my small group. Overall, v. few students left or flunked out of the program. In the ADN program in which I taught in the past, we accepted 24 students each year, and maybe 2-3 of each class withdrew or flunked out. In the BSN program in which I taught in the past, it was rare for anyone to drop out or flunk out. The idea of a program with a consistent 50% attrition rate (or even higher) boggles my mind. To me, that says that the school is doing something seriously wrong.

tiny_nurse · Nov 21, 2015

100% agree with elkpark.

NCLEX pass rates mean nothing if the program has an extensive "weeding out" of students who they think might negatively affect their pass rate. I think attrition is just as important and NCLEX pass rate.

mrsboots87 · Nov 22, 2015

I think it also depends on the competitiveness of the program. I have noticed that incredibly competitive schools with smaller classes, tend to have lower attrition rates because they have stricter selection criteria and weed out those they think won't pass in advance. But a wait list school (like the one I attended) that accepts larger amounts of students can't tend to have higher attrition rates since the selection process isn't as stringent.

My cohort just finished. In my two years, my class size was consistently similar in size as people repeated or transferred in from within the program district. But my graduation class will consist of about 27/88 original class mates. We are also only graduating 47 or 48 total people this December. My program is hard and doesn't intentionally weed students out. But because the entrance requirements include a 2.5 GPA and only and 85%/math and 75%/English on the HESI, not everyone who enters the program will have as good a chance at passing. I don't necessarily think it is the best way to go, but I'm sure the income from repeaters and large class sizes is what keeps the doors open. I attend an ADN program and we have the nicest sim lab and nursing class building in the area. We also have one of 2 sim labs equipped to do simulations for BON investigations. It's a great school with a crappy entrance process.

Try to apply based on school reputation for preparing its students well for practice.

BeachsideRN, ASN · Nov 22, 2015

Accreditation, attrition, nclex pass rates are all factors that need to be considered. But I don't think you can single out just 1 variable as a good indicator of success because, like elk park said, a high nclex rate with a high attrition rate could indicate they are manipulating the statistics.

chris21sn, BSN, RN · Nov 22, 2015

Probably the ideal attrition rate for BSN is

For my school, we have a 33% attrition rate, with in itself, isn't the greatest. But I'm still here, and many of my friends are still here. We are in the last year of our BSN program and it feels great.

BeachsideRN, ASN · Nov 22, 2015

The PP brings up a good point ... Also take into account services that the school provides to help you - tutoring, study groups, etc. and what happens if you do fail - are you out? Can you reapply? Retake classes after a period of time? Etc.

honeyforasalteyfish · Nov 22, 2015

Thank you all for your thoughts, and advice.