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Fact Sheet
Updated
September 2006
Nursing Faculty Shortage
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Faculty shortages at nursing schools across the country
are limiting student capacity at a time when the need for nurses
continues to grow. Budget constraints, an aging faculty, and increasing
job competition from clinical sites have contributed to this emerging
crisis.
To minimize the impact of faculty shortages on the
nation's nursing shortage, the American Association of Colleges
of Nursing (AACN) is leveraging its resources to secure federal
funding for faculty development programs, collect data on faculty
vacancy rates, identify strategies to address the shortage, and
focus media attention on this important issue.
Scope of the Nursing Faculty Shortage
- According to AACN's report on 2005-2006
Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs
in Nursing, U.S. nursing schools turned away 41,683 qualified
applicants to baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2005
due to an insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom
space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints. Almost three
quarters (73.5%) of the nursing schools responding to the 2005
survey pointed to faculty shortages as a reason for not accepting
all qualified applicants into nursing programs.
- According to a Special
Survey on Vacant Faculty Positions released by AACN in
July 2006, a total of 637 faculty vacancies were identified at
329 nursing schools with baccalaureate and/or graduate programs
across the country (55.3% response rate). Besides the vacancies,
schools cited the need to create an additional 55 faculty positions
to accommodate student demand. The data show a national nurse
faculty vacancy rate of 7.9% which translates into approximately
1.9 faculty vacancies per school. Most of the vacancies (53.7%)
were faculty positions requiring a doctoral degree.
- According to a study released by the Southern
Regional Board of Education (SREB) in February 2002, a serious
shortage of nurse faculty was documented in all 16 SREB states
and the District of Columbia. Survey findings show that the combination
of faculty vacancies (432) and newly budgeted positions (350)
points to a 12% shortfall in the number of nurse educators needed.
Unfilled faculty positions, resignations, projected retirements,
and the shortage of students being prepared for the faculty role
pose a threat to the nursing workforce over the next five years.
Factors Contributing to the
Faculty Shortage
Faculty age continues to climb, narrowing the
number of productive years nurse educators can teach.
According to AACN's report on 2005-2006
Salaries of Instructional and Administrative Nursing Faculty in
Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing, the average
ages of doctorally-prepared nurse faculty holding the ranks of professor,
associate professor, and assistant professor were 57.9, 55.4, and
51.5 years, respectively. For master's degree-prepared nurse faculty,
the average ages for professors, associate professors, and assistant
professors were 57.8, 54.5 and 50.0 years, respectively.
A wave of faculty retirements is expected across
the US over the next decade.
- According to an article published in the March/April
2002 issue of Nursing Outlook titled The
Shortage of Doctorally Prepared Nursing Faculty: A Dire Situation,
the average age of nurse faculty at retirement is 62.5 years.
With the average age of doctorally-prepared faculty currently
53.5 years, a wave of retirements is expected within the next
ten years. In fact, the authors project that between 200 and 300
doctorally-prepared faculty will be eligible for retirement each
year from 2003 through 2012, and between 220-280 master's- prepared
nurse faculty will be eligible for retirement between 2012 and
2018.
- According to the report Oregon's Nursing Shortage:
A Public Health Crisis in the Making prepared by the Northwest
Health Foundation in April 2001, 41% of the faculty in baccalaureate
and higher degree programs in Oregon are projected to retire by
2005 with an additional 46% projected to retire by 2010. In associate
degree programs, 24% are expected to retire by 2005 with an additional
33% retiring by 2010. This retirement pattern will likely be experienced
in other parts of the country as well.
Higher compensation in clinical and private-sector
settings is luring current and potential nurse educators away from
teaching.
According to the 2006 salary survey by The
Nurse Practitioner, the average salary of a master's prepared
nurse practitioner working is $72,480. By contrast, AACN
reports that master's prepared faculty across all ranks earn an
annual average salary of $55,712 in 2005.
Master's and doctoral programs in nursing are
not producing a large enough pool of potential nurse educators to
meet the demand.
- According to AACN's
2005-2006 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate
Programs in Nursing report, graduations from doctoral
nursing programs were up by only 1.5% or 6 graduates from the
2004-2005 academic year.
- Efforts to expand the nurse educator population
are frustrated by the fact that thousands of qualified applicants
to graduate nursing programs are turned away each year. In fall
2005, AACN found that 3,160 qualified applicants were turned
away from master's programs, and 202 qualified applicants were
turned away from doctoral programs. The primary reason for not
accepting all qualified students was a shortage of faculty.
- Further, an unpublished AACN
study on employment plans found that almost a quarter of all
graduates from doctoral nursing programs do not plan to work in
academic settings. Of the 412 doctoral graduates in 2003-2004
school year, post-graduation plans were reported for 307 (78%)
graduates. Twenty-two percent (22.5%) reported employment commitments
in settings other than schools of nursing. This finding is confirmed
by the National
Sample Survey of Registered Nurses which found that the proportion
of RNs with nursing doctorates who were employed in nursing schools
with baccalaureate and higher degrees showed steady declines in
recent years, dropping from 68% in 1992 to 49% in 2000.
Strategies to Address the Faculty Shortage
- In July 2006, the U.S. Senate passed an amendment
introduced by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) which created the Troops
to Nurse Teachers (TNT) Program. TNT Program encourages retiring
or separating military nurses to become nurse faculty. The legislation
provides scholarships or transitional assistance so nurses may
teach in schools of nursing. A total of $500,000 in funding was
included in the final FY 2007 Defense Appropriations bill to pay
for the program.
- In August 2005, the U.S. Secretary of Education
designated nursing as an "area of national need" for
the first time under the Graduate
Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) program. As a
result of this AACN led lobbying effort, a new funding stream
for PhD programs in nursing was created. In January 2006, $2.4
million in grant funding through the GAANN programs was awarded
to 14 schools of nursing.
- In June 2005, the US
Department of Labor awarded more than $12 million in grant-funding
through the President's High Growth Job Training Initiative, $3
million of which will help to address the nurse faculty shortage.
This latest round of funding brings the DOL's commitment to health
care workforce through the High-Growth program to more than $43
million.
- On February 7, 2005, Representative Nita Lowey
(D-NY) announced plans to introduce the Nurse
Education, Expansion and Development (NEED) Act in the 109th
Congress. This legislation (H.R. 5324), based on capitation
grants authority from the 1970s, was introduced by Reps. Lowey
and Lois Capps (D-CA) at the end of the congressional session
in 2004. If enacted, the NEED Act would provide funding to schools
of nursing to increase the number of nursing faculty and students,
including hiring new and retaining current faculty.
- In September 2004, Independence
Blue Cross (IBC) in Philadelphia announced the establishment
of the IBC Nurse Scholars Program, a $2.25 million scholarship
initiative to combat the critical shortage of nursing educators
and nurses in Southeastern Pennsylvania. G. Fred DiBona, Jr.,
IBC's President and CEO, said "by focusing a large portion
of our investment on attracting new teachers, we believe we ultimately
can put more nurses on the front lines - and more nurses corresponds
to better care."
- In March 2004, AACN launched an online resource
to support nurses considering full- or part-time teaching careers
called Faculty Career
Link. This information clearinghouse features a nurse educator
career profile, academic programs that prepare faculty, financial
aid opportunities, and links to faculty development programs.
Faculty Career Link also includes the most comprehensive list
available of faculty vacancies in US nursing colleges and universities.
- In February 2004, Nurses for a Healthier Tomorrow
(NHT), a coalition of 43 leading nursing and health care organizations,
launched a new public awareness campaign to generate interest
in careers as nurse educators. The campaign consists of four print
advertisements and a flyer that may be downloaded for free from
the NHT Web site; a career profile on the nurse educator that
has been posted online; and a national public relations. For more
information on the campaign and how you can support this effort,
see the Nurses
for a Healthier Tomorrow Web site.
- In May 2003, AACN published a comprehensive white
paper titled Faculty
Shortages in Baccalaureate and Graduate Nursing Programs: Scope
of the Problem and Strategies for Expanding the Supply.
This publication summarizes the faculty shortage issue, identifies
factors contributing to the shortfall, and advances strategies
for expanding the current and future pool of nursing faculty.
The white paper includes an appendix with examples of successful
strategies to address the faculty shortage suggested by schools
at AACN's 2003 Hot Issues Conference.
- In April 2003, a joint task force of the University
HealthSystem Consortium and AACN released a white paper that examined
how schools and practice partners can work together to address
common concerns, including the shortage of faculty. The paper,
titled Building
Capacity through University Hospital and University School of
Nursing Partnerships, recommends sharing clinical faculty,
preceptor training, and increasing access to clinical sites among
various long- and short-term solutions to the faculty shortage
issue.
- In February 2003, Congress appropriated $20 million
in funding for new programs created under new Nurse Reinvestment
Act. Designed to address the nursing shortage, this legislation
includes $3 million for a Nursing
Faculty Loan Program that provides loan forgiveness for students
in graduate programs who agree to work as nurse faculty upon graduation.
Funding through this program will be dispensed by schools of nursing
to students pursuing a faculty career.
- In October 2002, AACN released an Issue Bulletin
titled Using
Strategic Partnerships to Expand Nursing Education Programs,
which explores how nursing schools use partnerships to build student
capacity and fill faculty slots. The bulletin includes a section
on "Bridging the Faculty Shortage Gap" that illustrates
how institutions in five states are using collaborative ventures
to augment the faculty supply.
- In a January 2001 article in the Online Journal
of Issues in Nursing, Dr. Ada Sue Hinshaw outlined several
strategies to address the faculty shortage including retaining
productive senior faculty, factoring retirement trends into recruitment
schedules, and supporting federal funding for doctoral programs.
The article is titled A
Continuing Challenge: The Shortage of Educationally Prepared Nursing
Faculty.
- According to an April 1999 Issue Bulletin
titled Faculty
Shortages Intensify Nation's Nursing Deficit, nursing
schools across the country are seeking creative solutions to the
faculty shortage including joint appointments, aggressive internal
and external marketing, financial incentives, compressed
education programs, and legislative advocacy.
Last Update: September 5, 2006
CONTACT:
Robert Rosseter
(202) 463-6930, x231
rrosseter@aacn.nche.edu
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