Addressing the Nurse Faculty Shortage by Supporting Evaluations, Generating Evidence and Disseminating Findings

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Stats & Facts
- HRSA’s The U.S. Nursing Workforce: Trends in Supply and Education (April 2013) report indicated a small increase in the number of bachelor’s and graduate degree holders – about 5 percentage points – over the past decade. Currently, about 55 percent of the RN workforce holds a bachelor’s degree or higher. During the same period (2001-2011), the number of bachelor’s prepared RN candidates taking the NCLEX-RN exam for the first time more than doubled, up from 24,832 individuals in 2001 to 58,246 in 2011.
- According to the HRSA workforce report, there has been a 67 percent increase in the annual number of master’s and doctoral graduate degrees awarded between 2007 and 2011. The annual output of master’s graduates has increased by about 60 percent, and the output of doctoral graduates has more than tripled over the same time period.
- According to the preliminary data from the AACN’s 2012 Annual Survey - enrollment and graduation rates in the nation’s baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate programs continue to increase. Enrollments in entry-level baccalaureate programs in nursing increased by 3.5%% in 2012. In addition, enrollment remarkably jumped 22.2% for RN to BSN programs from 2011 to 2012.
- The graduate programs also saw marked increases in enrollment. The enrollment for master’s programs increased by 8.2%; DNP programs by 19.6%; and PhD programs by 1.3%. Read more about the findings here.
- The preliminary data from the AACN’s 2012 Annual Survey reports that in 2012, 52,212 qualified applicants were turned away from the entry-level baccalaureate programs due to a shortage of faculty, clinical sites and resource constraints.
- In a separate survey on employment of new graduates from entry level programs (baccalaureate and masters’), AACN found a strong hiring preference for new nurses prepared at the baccalaureate level as well as a comparatively high job-placement rate for new BSN and master’s graduates. Read more about the findings here.
- According to AACN's Special Survey on Vacant Faculty Positions for Academic Year 2012 - 2013, the nurse faculty vacancy rate among baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in the U.S. is 7.6% (2011 = 7.7%). The survey found a total of 1,181 budgeted unfilled full-time faculty positions at 662 nursing schools with baccalaureate and/or graduate programs.
- More than half (56.9%) of the nursing schools reported availability of full-time faculty positions in the AACN's Special Survey on Vacant Faculty Positions for Academic Year 2012 - 2013. To fill these positions, 56.3% of schools required Doctorate degree in nursing or other field; 32.0% preferred doctorate but required Master’s degree in nursing; and 10.5% required Master’s degree in nursing.
- The main issues cited by schools having difficulty in finding faculty in AACN's Special Survey on Vacant Faculty Positions for Academic Year 2012 - 2013 were a limited pool of doctorally prepared faculty (32.9%); noncompetitive salaries (27.6%); and finding faculty with right specialty mix (19.0%).
- A recent analysis of the U.S. Census indicates that over the past 10 years the US has seen a 62% surge of young nurses aged 23 to 26, after the steady decline and prolonged shortage over the past two decades. Read more here or access the study (Auerbach et al., 2011). Even in light of these changes, the 2009 projection still holds that the U.S. nursing shortage is projected to grow to 260,000 registered nurses by 2025 (Buerhaus et al, 2009).
- The NLN 2011 Annual Survey of Nursing Programs reports that in the academic year 2010 – 2011, 28% of qualified applicants were not accepted in Basic RN Programs. Read more about the findings here.
- According to the NLN 2011 Annual Survey of Nursing Programs, the percentage of qualified applicants not selected by program type includes - 64 % for BSN programs, 48% for MSN programs and 43% for Doctorate Programs. Read more here.
- The percentage of programs that turned away qualified applicants rose among every post-licensure program type between 2009 and 2011. Most remarkably the percentage of MSN programs turning away qualified applicants jumped by 15 percent over the past two years from just one in three programs to almost half in 2011 (the NLN 2011 Annual Survey of Nursing Programs). Read more here.
- According to the NLN 2011 Annual Survey of Nursing Programs, the two main reasons that Programs were unable to fill spots by program type were lack of qualified students (BSN = 50%, Master’s = 25% and Doctorate = 25%) and high cost/lack of affordability (BSN = 25%, Master’s = 50% and Doctorate = 63%). Read more here.
- According to the NLN 2011 Annual Survey of Nursing Programs, the main obstacles for expanding program capacity for pre-licensure programs were lack of clinical placement sites (42.1%) and the nursing faculty shortage (32.2%). Read more about the findings here.
- The NLN 2011 Annual Survey of Nursing Programs reports “lack of faculty” as the main obstacle to expanding capacity for both pre-licensure (ADN = 31%; BSN = 38%) and post-licensure (MSN = 56%; Doctorate = 50%) programs. Read more here.
- HRSA’s report on The Registered Nurse Population: Findings from the 2008 National Sample Survey of Registered Nursesfound significant growth (45.8 percent) in the number of RNs holding a master’s degree in nursing or a related field during the period from 2000 to 2008. The report also noted that in 2008 the number of RNs with a doctorate degree in nursing or a nursing-related field increased by 64.4 percent since 2000.
- HRSA's Bureau of Health Professions stresses that the shortage of nursing faculty will grow significantly in the near future with 60 percent of current faculty 50 years of age or older.
News on Nursing Education

For additional information on nursing education news, please visit HERE to read news briefs that are updated daily with links to full articles.

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