Yet another Texas institution of higher education is rallying to fill the looming nursing shortage.
Starting this fall semester, Concordia University Texas will offer a $10,000 scholarship to all eligible students enrolled in the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. The 16-month program is taught at the private Lutheran university’s Dallas campus and costs approximately $17,300 per term. Four terms are required to complete the degree, which does not include any prerequisite courses that are needed.
The Nursing Workforce Development Scholarship is dispersed incrementally throughout the program. Those looking to enroll this fall can apply until June 14, reported KERA News.
As previously covered in The Dallas Express, there is a growing demand for nurses in Texas, and colleges like the University of North Texas have been responding by creating new degree programs and courses, such as in correctional health, to meet the growing need to care for incarcerated geriatric patients.
Projections from the Texas Department of State Health Services indicate that while a statewide surplus of nurse practitioners is expected by 2032, full-time registered nurses will be in short supply everywhere except for the Panhandle. While North Texas is projected to be short by over 15,400 RNs, the Gulf Coast will have a higher unmet demand of over 21,000.
Concordia University hopes to create a new pipeline for registered nurses through the scholarship opportunity.
“We know that there is a huge need for nurses,” Dr. KC Pospisil, vice president of Academic Operations, told KERA News. “We know about the shortage of nurses in not only DFW, but nationwide. And so, we want to do our part in helping students to select nursing as their vocation and be able to come to Concordia and get their nursing degree.”
As India Sample, a professor of nursing at Concordia, explained to KERA, there is also a shortage of instructors to sustain nursing degree programs.
Data for 2023 from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing shows a national nurse faculty vacancy rate of 7.8%. This contributed, in part, to nearly 66,000 qualified applicants for nursing programs being turned away that same year.