When will nursing schools feel the effect of this bad economy?

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Past recessions have shown that people go back to school (and join the military) when times get bad. Nursing schools already are short staffed for faculty. When will schools feel the full brunt of the inevitable wave of new nursing school applicants from this recession?

My hypothesis is that it will take a year or two since it would take most applicants some time to finish pre-req classes before applying to programs. I know that at least in my state, the community colleges are seeing record enrollment. So I'm thinking that the 2010/2011 academic cycle will be when nursing programs will become even more competitive and inundated with applications.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Take a look at the Nursing Faculty forum (under the Specialty tab). The economy is already hitting SONs. There are budget cutbacks and reduction in faculty positions; existing faculty are getting their salaries cut.

Nursing schools are considered 'expensive' in the academic world - many universities are probably just waiting for an excuse to close them. Without significant influx of Federal funding, we can only expect everything to get much worse.

Lobby your political representatives for more funding to support faculty & provide scholarships for the advanced degrees that it takes to teach nursing school. :twocents:

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Specializes in Med-Tele, Internal Med PCU.

Not to be sarcastic but how long is the application list at your school?

My school receives 200+ qualified applicants for 60 seats, they have a smaller class that was funded by a local medical organization it seats 10 (the donor paid one instructor salary + lab equipment) and they get 50-75 applications.

rbezemek hit the nail on the head ... increased applicants, budget cuts, an already over taxed staff.

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Specializes in Cardiac PICU, PICU, NICU.

Yep, my nursing school is having severe budget cuts this next year....reducing the number of students they will accept from about 120 to 50. Very bad :(

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Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

It has been affecting it for YEARS before this recent bout even came on to it. It was just not in the limelight as it is now. As one said earlier, look at how deep your wait list is to get in. Same with our school and I bet a lot of others.

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