Why is it so hard?

That's exactly the reason. As much of a nursing shortage as there is, the nursing educator shortage is vastly more acute.

There is no real nursing shortage per se.....it's more a shortage of RN's who are willing to work under poor conditions. (IMO)

Getting into NS should be difficult. You will be responsible for people's lives.

There are waiting lists and lots of competition all over the country, not just the 2 states you have mentioned.

Keep your grades high, and if becoming a nurse is something you truly want.....it will happen.

That is definitely it. It was just on our news here in TN a few days ago, that we are turning away hundreds of qualified applicants to nursing school because of the lack of instructors to teach them.

Not just lack of instructors, but lack of clinical sites. Stay focused and keep your grades high.

if lack of instructors is the problem, is it REALLY necessary to have a degree to teach??? bedside experience is a far better teacher than any book can convey! just a thought.

exactly...not everyone can teach effectively. You have to be able to incorporate a lot of different styles to teach a whole group, and be able to be firm/consistant/professional.

I look forward to the day when I become a nursing educator. Until then, keep trying and know that if you have the will, there will be a way!

i am currently in school 84 days to graduation and counting. i thought it was too easy to get in and i see so many people that i am in school that i would not want to take care of me or any of my loved ones. i think that it needs to be hard to get. the hardest thing i have seen for my school is finding enough instructors and enough clinical sites. i feel like i am lacking some clinical experinces because they were not available to my school. in my area there are long waiting lists for schools to get students in to hospitals. that may be everywhere but i can only speak for my area.

I live in Texas (Dallas area), and its the same way here. I finally got in, but I was one of 40 who made it out of about 300 applicants.

In order to teach nursing you have to be a nurse. It seems that after all the hard work, and graduation most people want to work as a nurse, and not a nurse instructor.......hence the problem.

My CC keeps trying to open a sister program on another campus, but can't seem to get enough instructors to make it happen.

My prof in school (he is an MD) said that there are a variety of reasons for the shortage, most you have mentioned. Shortage in "bad" areas since not many people want to work there, not enough educators, the older nurses are retiring and the general public of seniors is rising (baby boomers) so they need more people to care for them (think LTC), and he also said that nurses want it to stay competitive so that they continue to receive a decent wage. If they're less in demand then the pay would decrease.

In my experience as an instructor I've found that salaries for instructors are often LESS than for a staff nurse and nursing schools are unwilling to have their students do clinical on the 3P-11P or 11P-7A shifts. I taught Psychiatric Nursing in a big city LPN program for several years and staff nurses in the Crisis Center (a psychiatric ER) told me many times that if we come on the 3-11 shift on Friday nights, we'll get some great clinical experience. It was doable, I was willing to do it, and my students said they would come. The Dean however, gave me all sorts of excuses why it couldn't be done, "the Board of Nursing would have to approve it, lots of paperwork to fill out, have to inform the students, nursing director, staff, blah, blah, blah," and so it wasn't done and the students missed out on some great psych clinical opportunities.

Yes, we turn away thousands of qualified students every year and we lose a lot of successful nurses every year due to retirement or exhaustion. If we keep this up, we'll be replaced in the future by a frustrated Congress who will come up with a new name for a health care worker formerly called, "nurse."