Newscope
School of Nursing recognized for enrollment increase
Loma Linda University School of Nursing was recognized in a recent story written by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), Washington, D.C., as being one of the few schools in the nation to demonstrate a significant improvement in enrollment.
The story featured the results of an annual survey released December 20, 2001, by the AACN, which showed that enrollments in entry-level baccalaureate programs in nursing increased in fall, 2001, ending a six-year period of decline.
Undergraduate enrollments at LLU’s School of Nursing surged by 18 percent this year due in part to a vigorous recruitment campaign and a federally funded outreach project targeted at underrepresented groups in nursing.
“Like many private schools, we still have excess capacity in our nursing program,” says Helen E. King, PhD, RN, dean of the School of Nursing.
“To continue to expand our nursing program, we need more scholarships and grants to reduce the cost of a nursing
education and make it more affordable for students.”
According to the results of the survey, this increase comes at a time when the need for nurses with baccalaureate and graduate degrees is expanding in the United States health-care system.
Though this increase ends a downward trend, the number of students in the educational pipeline is still insufficient to meet the projected demand for a million new nurses over the next 10 years.
The AACN findings are based on responses from a total of 548 (80.8 percent) of the nation’s nursing schools with bachelor’s and graduate degree programs that were surveyed in fall, 2001.
The survey found that total enrollment in all nursing programs leading to the baccalaureate degree was 106,557 in 2001. By comparison, the total enrollment in 1995—the year enrollments began to dip—was 127,683 for all baccalaureate programs.
Data show that nursing school enrollments are up in all regions of the United States, with the greatest increase realized in the South with a 4-percent rise in entry-level baccalaureate enrollment.
Other regions reported the following increases during fall, 2000, to fall, 2001: North Atlantic schools were up by 3.5 percent; midwest schools were up by 3.5 percent; and schools in the west were up by 3.4 percent. LLU’s School of Nursing rose by 18 percent.
According to the November, 2001, Monthly Labor Review released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a million new nurses will be needed by the year 2010.
The shortage is expected to intensify over the next decade as baby boomers age and a large percentage of the current nursing workforce retires.
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