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Dr. Yedidia is Professor, Ms. Chou is Senior Research Analyst, and Dr. Brownlee is Senior Research Manager, Rutgers University Center for State Health Policy, New Brunswick, New Jersey; Dr. Flynn is Professor and Associate Dean, Academic Programs, University of Colorado Denver College of Nursing, Aurora, Colorado; and Dr. Tanner is Professor Emerita, Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing, Portland, Oregon.
This research was funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The authors have disclosed no potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.
For more than a decade, numerous studies have projected a severe shortage of nurses. Despite the positive effects of a weak economy on the nurse labor supply, recent analyses indicate the persistence of a significant shortage (Staiger, Auerbach, & Buerhaus, 2012). The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012) projects a need for 1.2 million new nurses by 2020 to meet increasing demands and losses due to retirement.
In the face of this demand, considerable evidence of a nurse faculty shortage exists, which is expected to worsen over the next decade. A survey reported by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing indicated that of all budgeted full-time faculty positions in baccalaureate (BSN) and graduate degree programs, 1,088, or 7.7%, were vacant (Fang & Li, 2012). A telling indicator of the inadequate supply of faculty are reports that baccalaureate and higher degree programs, as well as associate degree nursing (ADN) programs, turn away thousands of qualified applicants due to a lack of necessary educational resources. The availability of faculty is one of several interrelated factors cited in explaining constraints on teaching capacity. In a survey of baccalaureate and higher degree programs, almost two thirds of these nursing schools identified faculty shortages as a reason for not accepting all qualified applicants into entry-level baccalaureate programs (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2012). Other top-cited reasons for not accepting all qualified applicants were insufficient clinical teaching sites and limited classroom space. A more recent survey by the National League for Nursing (2013) reported that, although the percentage of qualified applicants turned down by ADN programs slightly decreased from 51% to 45% between 2011 and 2012, the percentage of qualified applicants rejected by BSN programs remained steady at 36%...