Utah strives to fund nursing schools

A statewide initiative to crank up the number of nurses entering the workforce is making a dent for Utah nursing schools, but some programs still have waiting lists of hundreds of students who can't be accommodated.

Although roughly $1.8 million in state funding this year increased the number of nursing students by 37 percent, that funding needs to keep coming if Utah schools are going to be able to keep up with a growing nursing shortage, said Donna Lister, president of the Utah Organization of Nurse Leaders.

"If projections are accurate, then we're going to need to continue to educate a significant number of nurses to take care of the population," Lister said. "Yes, it's helped because we have more graduates, but we'd love to keep that funding level up."

This year's money was the second installment of a five-year nursing initiative, which is halfway finished and in need of more ongoing funds, Lister added. In this legislative session, higher education officials asked for another $700,00 in ongoing funds and $500,000 in one-time money to keep up with the demand for more nurses.

That demand is being met by eager students, said Joyce Barra, nursing director at Salt Lake Community College. The hold-up is finding enough faculty to open courses and funnel more students through the program, she said.

At SLCC, for example, slots for the nursing program are booked up until 2010 with students who have already been accepted into the program. Others, Barra said, are either on waiting lists of hundreds or have given up and are now trying to get into private schools.

"That's the biggest complaint we get at the community college — are you really serving the community when you have to wait so long?" Barra said. "We don't have faculty, we don't have sites."

The picture is similar at Southern Utah University, where roughly 300 students have already declared nursing as their major with only 100 slots available. Fifty students have already been accepted into the program but are waiting for a spot to open so their training can actually begin.

But Gary Wixom, associate higher education commissioner for academic affairs, is quick to note the funding has made ripples. In Nephi, for example, a new outreach program from Snow College has doubled the number of licensed practical nurses getting their degree.

"When you get out and see that, it really is quite exciting to see the impact that has. Those nurses will be trained and many of them will stay right here in the local area," Wixom said.