Serious Nurse Faculty Shortage Exacerbating Nurse Shortage

AFT Calls for Higher Salaries, More Funding for Nursing Programs

Report Released Near the Christmas Day Birthday of Civil War Nurse Clara Barton



WASHINGTON, D.C. – Tens of thousands of qualified nursing school applicants are turned away annually because there are not enough nurse educators to teach them, exacerbating the already dire nationwide nurse shortage, according to an American Federation of Teachers Nurse Faculty Shortage Task Force report released today.

The report, which recommends higher salaries for nurse educators and more public and private funding for nursing programs, was produced by a task force created by the AFT’s healthcare and higher education divisions and comprised of nursing school faculty and frontline nurses.

The problem creates a dangerous Catch-22 that ends up harming patients,” said AFT President Edward J. McElroy. “You can’t solve the nurse shortage problem unless more people receive nursing degrees, but there simply aren’t enough nurse educators to train more nurses.”

Some key statistics that illustrate the problem:

• The federal government estimates there will be 1 million fewer nurses than needed by 2020.
  
  
• In 2004, nursing schools rejected 26,340 qualified applicants, primarily because of faculty shortages, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, or AACN.
  
  
• Seven percent of the 10,200 full-time faculty positions at 609 U.S. undergraduate and graduate nursing programs are vacant, according to the AACN. Two-year nursing programs are experiencing similar problems.
  
  

A major cause of this problem is inferior salaries for nurse faculty. A nurse educator with a master’s degree earns about $20,000 less than a hospital nurse who also has a master’s degree. Another contributing factor for the nurse educator shortage is continuous cuts in higher education, forcing many nursing programs to shrink or close.

Recommendations:

The AFT Nurse Faculty Shortage Task Force makes these recommendations to address the problem:

Create a work environment conducive to recruiting new nursing faculty and retaining those already in the profession. The report recommends higher salaries through collective bargaining. Also, it suggests creating a workplace culture within nursing schools to mentor new faculty.

Increase the amount of public and private money available to properly fund and expand nursing programs. The report urges Congress to fully fund the Nurse Reinvestment Act, which provides for faculty loan cancellation. States, hospitals and other clinical agencies also should provide more funding for nursing education.

Develop and implement updated and nontraditional methods of instruction to prepare future nursing instructors. Nursing schools should investigate ways to deliver clinical skills education, including clinical simulation. They also should study existing nontraditional and accelerated programs to determine their successes, lessons learned and potential use as models for future programs.

Join faculty and facilities in collaborations consistent with quality nursing education. Nursing schools should increase formal partnerships with clinical facilities. Also, they should create roles for retired nursing faculty to support current faculty.