Nurseweek/Healthweek | Nursing schools receiving more applications but accepting fewer students

Nursing schools receiving more applications but accepting fewer students

posted 6-5-97

Although the number of applicants to nursing programs is rising, nursing schools are admitting fewer students, according to a recent American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) survey.

Enrollment in both entry-level bachelor’s and master’s degree nursing programs was lower in the fall of 1996 than in 1995. At the 522 nursing schools participating in the survey, enrollment in bachelor’s programs fell 6.2 percent, to about 87,000. Enrollment in master’s programs, which had climbed steadily since 1988, dropped 3.4 percent, to about 32,000. Nursing schools said they were accepting fewer students in response to a changing marketplace and strained educational resources.

"We may have entered a new age where declining enrollments are not a sign of declining interest, but of schools themselves trimming the numbers of entering students," said AACN President Carole A. Anderson, PhD, RN, FAAN. Schools are enrolling fewer applicants primarily because of a shortage of instructors and clinical or classroom space, Anderson said.

The sites that nursing schools have traditionally used to train students—such as HMOs, clinics, and other community-based facilities—are being approached by other disciplines as physician assistant programs grow and medical schools move more training to primary care. In addition, hospitals are treating fewer inpatients and discharging them earlier, so the number of students they can accommodate also has fallen, the AACN report says.

Several schools with limited resources reported they scaled back enrollment in entry-level BSN programs in 1996 to concentrate on meeting the escalating demand for nurse practitioners and other master’s-prepared nurses with advanced practice skills, Anderson said.