PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PACKAGE CUTS DEEPLY
INTO
NURSE TRAINING, AACN WARNS
Noting Balanced Budget as Worthy
Goal, Nursing Educators Say Level of Proposed Funding
Cuts Could Mean "True Hardship" for Public Health
WASHINGTON, D.C., February 6, 1997 -- If
enacted into law, President Clinton's proposed FY98 budget
would not only eliminate federal money for vitally needed
new nursing education programs, but would also fund existing
programs with such trace amounts as to be virtually meaningless,
according to a statement released today by the American
Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN).
Under the President's proposal, funding
for the Nurse Education Act (NEA) -- the single largest
source of federal support for baccalaureate- and graduate-degree
nursing education -- would be reduced to just under $8 million
for fiscal year 1998, an 88-percent cut from the $65 million
currently appropriated for the NEA in FY97.
"The net effect will be to destabilize
a carefully established system that prepares needed professionals
for the nation's largest health care profession at the very
time when health planners are looking to nursing to bear
more responsibility to deliver needed primary care, address
the needs of an increasingly older population, and provide
high-quality treatment for persons living with chronic illnesses,"
says AACN President Carole A. Anderson, PhD, RN, FAAN.
"While a balanced budget is a worthy
goal, sacrificing nursing education to accomplish it is
shortsighted and could mean true hardship for public health
in the future," Dr. Anderson warns. "Taking money from nursing
education to fund other initiatives in the President's budget
may have been done with the assumption that Congress --
long a bipartisan supporter of nursing and of other health
professions education -- will prevent devastating cuts in
these essential programs. The President's proposal plays
a dangerous game, because pressure to balance the budget
could encourage Congress to go along with these massive
reductions."
"Moreover, despite strong demand,
the past two years have seen declining enrollments in bachelor's-degree
nursing programs, with 1996 witnessing the first enrollment
declines in master's-degree nursing programs in six years,
due largely to budget and other constraints that have produced
faculty shortages and limited the number of slots for clinical
training at many schools that have been forced to hold down
class size," Dr. Anderson explains. "Clearly, the President's
proposal could only make an already challenging situation
even more threatening."
Federal funding provides the venture capital
necessary to start new nursing education programs and helps
redirect existing programs to meet the changing demands
of the health system. In supporting a broad array of initiatives
to prepare nurse clinicians and future nursing faculty,
the NEA focuses primarily on training for nurse practitioners,
clinical specialists, certified nurse-midwives, and nurse
anesthetists -- registered nurses prepared in master's-degree
programs who perform at the critical advanced practice level.
The NEA also provides individual financial assistance for
undergraduate, graduate, and disadvantaged students, and
provides crucial seed money for many nursing-school-operated
nursing centers that deliver front-line primary care to
high-risk and vulnerable populations and underserved communities.
AACN and other organizations of the Tri-Council
for Nursing have urged stable funds for NEA in FY98 that
remain level with FY97 appropriations. AACN will mobilize
its membership to urge Congress to reject the President's
dangerously weak funding targets for professional nurse
education.
The American Association of Colleges
of Nursing is the national voice for university and four-year-college
education programs in nursing. Representing more than 580
member schools of nursing at public and private institutions
nationwide, AACN's educational, research, governmental advocacy,
data collection, publications, and other programs work to
establish quality standards for bachelor's- and graduate-degree
nursing education, assist deans and directors to implement
those standards, influence the nursing profession to improve
health care, and promote public support of baccalaureate
and graduate nursing education, research, and practice.
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CONTACT: Robert Rosseter
(202) 463-6930, x231
rrosseter@aacn.nche.edu
