I can tell you one of the problems is that nursing schools insist you have a Masters in Nursing to teach nursing students.
I have a Masters in Health Services Administration and my BS in nursing but I cannot be hired to teach. Sort of short sighted since I my degree is a broader view of Healthcare.
Another interesting reason there’s a critical shortage of nurses is that even if nursing schools could hire the additional faculty needed to enlarge the class sizes, there isn’t the clinical sites available to place all of the students. Where I go to school there is a large regional hospital in town yet there are 4 different nursing schools- 3 CCs along with my school- that send clinical groups to the floors. There are so many students there that some groups were sent to a different hospital for their Med/Surg clinical because we cannot fit all of the students on the floors.
In future semesters, half of the students are forced to travel 45 minutes at 530 in the morning for their maternal-infant clinical because they can’t fit all of us in town.
Even if the nursing faculty shortage is address, we can’t expand student sizes to address the overall shortage of nurses if these additional students cannot get the clinical hours needed to sit for the NCLEX.