Will the economy ever get better so less people will pursue nursing?

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Competiton is too much. It's the same at every school. When will this go away? I'm so frustrated!

If I do have a reading comprehension problem, I would like to get some tutoring to correct it. I did very well on the TEAS except for the Reading and I would hate to let that little barrier get in my way.

I was very good in school as a child and never had issues learning how to read and write. Those used to be my best subjects in school but I think as I gotten older I lost those skills. I don't read as much as I used to unless I have to for a class.

Do you have a nursing school entrance exam test prep book? If not get one and study.

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so let me get this straight - your TEAS scores are too low in reading to gain acceptance to nursing school and you're ****** off because too many other people got higher scores and accepted before you? Is that the gist of this?

sorry...wah...cry me a river - I don't want to be a nurse because of the economy, I want to be a nurse because I want to be a nurse - maybe all the other people that want to be nurses just want to be nurses too regardless of the economy...I think the only person to be ****** off at is yourself...

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Will the economy ever get better and will this cause less people to pursue nursing?

IMHO:

It is going to take quite a number of years for the economy to get better. The fall out, aftermath and the personal long term effects of what this "recession" has done to millions of people is astronomical. The loss of life savings and retirement accounts, the loss of homes, foreclosures, bankruptcies, loss of health insurance. The changes in legislation that have taken place that govern each of these areas of loss due to the documented causes of this recession. A person's buying and borrowing power! Personal credit worthiness. The stuff school loans are built on. I think only a fool would borrow thousands of dollars now a days to pursue a nursing education given the employment climate post graduation and the short lived career life span the current PTB have laid down as a precedent for a nurse's career life span. The brand new GN can't get in and the experienced RN is being forced out. The NG can't find jobs and the nurses with 20-25yrs experience and above have been forced out and can't find other jobs to rebuild. Like ballplayers, models and actors- this is the career span now of the nurse. Does anyone see a major gap in pay scale between these occupations. Who in their right mind would sink approx $70,000 or more into a career that is not well paid and will only last 20yrs?

I know my 21 yr old will not. She has spent 2 yrs in college, all of which her and I have paid out of pocket, and happily not in nursing. She has the rest of her life to declare her major and she stated to me, she is not going to get a degree in something she can't get a job in after graduation!! So there you have it. Out of the mouth of the 20yr old generation who is living with a parent, who is a nurse- was an acute care hospital bedside RN for 30 yrs and caught up in this financial devastation, inaddition to afew of her friends who are NG's, can't get nursing jobs and are BSN's waiting tables.

Will this cause less people to pursue Nursing? I hope so.

Obama gave a speech last spring about the career fields where the expected future job growth was going to be- technology and engineering were the 2 highest, nursing was not mentioned.

Is there a nursing shortage? -

NO!! Not when you have GN's, experienced nurses over a certain age(try 50yr old) unemployed, hiring freezes, BSN only retoric, only applicants with 1-2 yrs recent acute care experience need apply, CNA's/PCT/MT's being hired in droves and no salary concessions from the execs.

I have a feeling these execs are going to be in for one big shock when this economy picks a just a little more. I don't think it's going to be just us "old nurses" who they think should have retired exiting the doors!! They might have to fork out more bucks than they held on to over the past 5 yrs.

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Please don't think that I am intending to come off rude to anyone who has responded to the OP, but I just felt the need to point out a couple of points. Firstly, Optometry was actually suggested by some as an alternative to nursing practice, and then later others argued whether or not this was a bachelor's degree or masters. While in some parts of the world Optometry is a bachelor's degree (such as the UK) in the USA Optometry is a clinical doctorate (OD) with requirements closely resembling medical school. Some optometry schools require the OAT and others the MCAT to be accepted, and, due to the limited number of schools, optometry schools in the USA are very competitive. As far as physical therapy goes in the USA all schools of physical therapy are now required to offer a clinical doctorate (DPT) which usually lasts 3 years after finishing a bachelor's degree. Physician Assistant is still offered at a handful of schools as a bachelor's degree (even though many successful applicants already have a bachelor's degree or higher at time of matriculation), but most schools are now master's programs (even though there are some like Georgia Health Sciences University that do not require a bachelor's to be accepted to the master's level program). While it is true that a very few schools still offer PA as an associates most of these require extensive prerequesities in both classes and clinical experience. Pharmacy schools still routinely accept applications from people with only two years of undergraduate prerequisities before starting on the 4 year Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree, but there again you are a much more attractive candidate with more classes and paid experience working in a pharmacy. The PCAT isn't as verbal intensive as the MCAT, but the math is pretty intense.

With regards to a nursing shortage, this all depends on the area of the country you live in and/or are willing to relocate to. There are hospitals, etc. in some rural areas, for example, that can't get enough help, but the trade off is that you live in a rural area, away from larger cities and city ammenities, and, depending on where you come from, quite possibly a long way from your family and "home". The other problem, as others have pointed out, is that the "nursing shortage" has traditionally been presented as a country wide (or even global) problem when there are some areas that have plenty of nurses, and others that can't pay enough to bring them in. I also personally feel (and not accusing the OP of this) that if you base your choice of career (in any career field) solely on what you can "make" in that field you are setting yourself up for hard times.

To the OP I would say that it might be helpful to look really long and hard in to the reasons you really want to be a nurse. If the only reasons you can come up with are things like "the pay is good", "you get respect", or "my family really wants me to be one", then you might be doing yourself a favor by looking into other avenues of education and employment. This is not meant to be rude, but sometimes you have to soul search. If, however, after doing this you decide that nursing is still right for you then you will have to take charge of your plan to achieve this goal, buckle down, and make it happen. If it takes 5 more years, but at the end of that you will be happy then it is all worth it. However, if it is not something that you really want to do for more than a perceived income level then no matter how "quick" you can get in the end result will not make things any better for you.

I once heard a pre-nursing student complaining about having to do all these "anatomy and science classes" which she said were "all a waste" of her time, because all she wanted to be was "just a nurse". Needless to say I think this student had no real clue what being "just a nurse" meant. I asked her why she wanted to be a nurse if she wasn't interested in learning how the human body works and how to use that to help patients, and she replied that the "person in the admissions office said it would be something good for me to do where I could make really good money with only a two year degree". So the end result was that this student wanted to make really good money, but probably had no clue what being a bedside nurse day in and day out was really all about. Not saying the OP is this way, but this does illustrate one reason why there are so many applicants to nursing programs.

Anyway, sorry for being long winded, and once again just my two cents worth.

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

ccso962 - if you are aware of any areas or hospitals that can't get enough help, perhaps you could contribute this information to our new forum dedicated to helping the many nurses who - despite extensive networking and a willingness to relocate have come up empty. We've had people buy plane tickets just for an interview in a different city.

Nursing First Job Hunt Assistance

https://allnurses.com/nursing-first-job/

They may have missed the opportunities you refer to.

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I have done as you suggested and posted information on that forum. I hope that at least some of the information I was able to provide there is able to help someone in their search for a job.

:-)

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I would suggest going into something like teaching or a trade like plumber, electrician, or a mechanic. Those jobs pay handsomely, I might add (not the teacher, but the trades).

Yup, my dad's a carpenter and my brother's an electrician and they each make about 25% more than I do. I tell my dad all the time that I should've been a carpenter...

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Anyone going into nursing simply for the job security and or wages will soon be in for a rude awakening.

Really think the general public at large does not understand just how darn hard nurses work. Nor no matter how difficult the job and or circumstances these days a nurse is only good as her/his last mistake. An error great or small can easily find a nurse today out on the cold streets with few prospects for another hospital gig.

As for the general trend for everyone and their mother seemingly rushing into nursing programs, don't see that going away any time soon.

Long as people keep drinking the Kool-Aid about a looming "nursing shortage" and how the profession is one of few growth areas in an otherwise horrible economy they will continue beating a path to school's doors.

So many jobs have been taken out of the American economy over the past decade many see nursing as the last stand. You canno outsource patient care and there will always be a need for nurses so the theory goes. One finds this especially true of second (or third) career individuals who have been downsized, pushed out and or otherwise made redundant so many times they just want to find *something*.

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Specializes in none.
Anyone going into nursing simply for the job security and or wages will soon be in for a rude awakening.

Really think the general public at large does not understand just how darn hard nurses work. Nor no matter how difficult the job and or circumstances these days a nurse is only good as her/his last mistake. An error great or small can easily find a nurse today out on the cold streets with few prospects for another hospital gig.

As for the general trend for everyone and their mother seemingly rushing into nursing programs, don't see that going away any time soon.

Long as people keep drinking the Kool-Aid about a looming "nursing shortage" and how the profession is one of few growth areas in an otherwise horrible economy they will continue beating a path to school's doors.

So many jobs have been taken out of the American economy over the past decade many see nursing as the last stand. You canno outsource patient care and there will always be a need for nurses so the theory goes. One finds this especially true of second (or third) career individuals who have been downsized, pushed out and or otherwise made redundant so many times they just want to find *something*.

The general public know all about Nursing. They watch 'HOUSE' and the soap operas. They know that either Nurses are always at the bed side of patients to minister to their every whim or doing the horizontal hula with some doctor in bed. They have seen OPRAH's show about Nurse that do it with aliens from the planet Detox. They know.

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So many jobs have been taken out of the American economy over the past decade many see nursing as the last stand. You canno outsource patient care and there will always be a need for nurses so the theory goes.

Yep you can't outsource nurses, but what you CAN do, at least as a government, is allow non-citizens to take places in nursing schools that could be made available to citizens. You CAN allow nurse recruitment firms to recruit out of country (read this as "willing to accept lower wage") nurses.

I am not anti-legal immigration or anti-education, but what I do find interesting is that we (the USA) are one of the only countries that does not place a legal limit on how many foreign students can enter into our health professional programs. We are also one of the only places on Earth where you can come from another country, and still use our government's financial aid, tax funded, resources. The UK for instance places restrictions on the number of international students that can be admitted to their health professional schools, and then, on graduation, most of these students must return to their country of origin due to laws that limit who can and can not work in the health field in the UK. Australian medical schools are some of the best in the world, but a student from the USA cannot be accepted there and then plan to pay for their education from money supplied by Australian residents.

I don't mean to get political on this, but our professional groups should really be working on these very real threats to jobs for American health professionals.

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It's not just nursing! Look around. It's everywhere. More people out of work, working part time and others working full time but making alot less than they used to. Schools and Universities are about making money. If they were to tell you that there are only say 500 openings but we have 3000 enrolled, chances are you may decide to not enroll in the program. That means no new money for them. It's business.

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It's not just nursing! Look around. It's everywhere. More people out of work working part time and others working full time but making alot less than they used to. Schools and Universities are about making money. If they were to tell you that there are only say 500 openings but we have 3000 enrolled, chances are you may decide to not enroll in the program. That means no new money for them. It's business.[/quote']

This is a wonderful point. As you say this is not exclusive to nursing. My sister has had a degree in elementary education (which she obtained with an A average GPA) and has been teacher certified for over five years now. Sadly, despite applying and applying and applying (and interviewing and interviewing and interviewing) she has not been able to obtain a teacher position. Instead she is continuing to work as a teacher assistant making, sadly, very low pay while still having to pay off her student loans. She is not the only one either. A large portion of the people she graduated with are in the same boat. And yet, all the schools local to where I am who offer education degrees are still marketing them left and right.

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