Did You Know?

In 2011, Good Samaritan Foundation celebrates 60 years of service to nursing students and nursing schools in Texas.

Good Samaritan Foundation is the leading private provider of nursing scholarships in the State of Texas.

In 60 years, Good Samaritan Foundation has awarded more than $15 million to more than 15,000 nursing students in Texas.

Texas Needs Nurses

Nurse Education

In 2008, Texas nursing schools produced 7,689 graduates of initial RN licensure programs. To meet the projected demand in 2020, more than three times that number will be needed. Nursing schools have been increasing the number of graduates for several years, but the graduation numbers remain far below what will be required.

Ironically, no shortage exists in the number of people wanting to become nurses. Prospective students are applying in record numbers. But each year, more than 40 percent of the qualified applicants to Texas nursing schools are turned away due mostly to shortages of faculty and clinical practice sites.

As nursing school budgets have been squeezed, not enough faculty positions are budgeted, and not enough qualified nurses are willing to teach at prevailing wages.

Faculty positions require a professor to hold a master’s degree or higher in nursing. As supply scarcity has raised compensation levels for nurses throughout the healthcare industry, faculty salaries have been unable to compete with public-sector nursing jobs requiring similar education and experience. If in 2006, all of the then-vacant faculty positions had been filled, 2,724 more nursing students could have entered Texas schools.

Complicating efforts to build nursing school faculties is that nursing faculty members are “graying” at an even faster rate than are nurses in clinical practice. Four years ago, seventy percent of the faculty members in Texas nursing schools were age 50 or older.

Faculty initiatives must be complemented by programs to increase both financial aid and the number of students pursuing post-baccalaureate degrees and certification. A 2006 report noted:

“. . . 54 to 62 percent of the nursing students who participated in this study reported working between 11 and 40+ hours per week while going to school. If nursing students were able to receive financial support, it would attract a higher caliber of students to the nursing programs, would allow students to reduce the number of hours they work per week, and would allow the students to focus more on their nursing education in order to successfully complete the program on-time. Nursing programs also need to increase the number of students enrolled in their graduate programs, more specifically to prepare graduate students to become nurse educators. In the past, traineeships and financial aid helped to recruit more nurses to continue their education at the masters and doctorate levels.”