New AACN Statistics Show an Increase in Nursing Enrollment

New AACN Statistics Show an Increase in Nursing Enrollment
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) has released new data which shows an enrollment surge in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs. In fact more than 75,000 qualified applications to professional nursing programs were turned away in 2011. Despite the fact that US nursing schools have been able to expand student capacity even in the face of faculty and resource shortfalls, "the latest data show that 75,587 qualified applications to professional nursing programs were turned away last year, including more than 14,354 applications to graduate programs." Click on the link for the full report on the AACN website.

Nursing Faculty Shortage Update: AACN

"In July 2009, 803 faculty vacancies were identified at 310 nursing schools with baccalaureate and/or graduate programs across the country [US]. Besides these vacancies, 117 schools cited the need to create 279 additional faculty positions to accommodate student demand. The latest data show a national nurse faculty vacancy rate of 6.6% with most of the vacancies (90.6%) for faculty positions requiring or preferring a doctoral degree. The top reasons cited by schools having difficulty finding faculty were noncompetitive salaries compared to positions in the practice arena (32.2%) and the limited pool of doctorally-prepared faculty (30.3%)."

Reported in Medical News Today from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) .

Funding Ideas to Further Your Nursing Career

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) has gathered an extensive list of alerts to grants, fellowships, scholarships, etc.; and to ongoing funding sources for nursing programs, students and research opportunities.
The student section of the site also has a Career Center, a page devoted to listing scholarships and financial aid resources, as well as other useful information and links. Some undergraduate nursing student scholarship and financial aid opportunities are also listed.