<p>For the last decade or so, freshly minted college grads with Nursing degrees in hand were pretty much assured a good, well-paying job in one of Boston's top notch hospitals. As an article in today's Boston Globe suggests, this is no longer the case. And what is especially disturbing is that many nursing students have taken on huge loans thinking they would be able to pay them back without too much difficulty. Ouch!</p>
<p>Three take-away messages from this article:
No field is safe in today's turbulent economic environment,
Think twice before taking on big loans,
Whatever your field, be prepared to relocate.</p>
<p>What scares me is wondering about what kind of health care people now are getting. I can’t imagine that nurses aren’t needed any more. </p>
<p>"When Katharine Barron enrolled in Boston College’s school of nursing in 2005, everyone - family, friends, college officials - assured her hospitals would be “banging down her door” with job offers.</p>
<pre><code>Discuss
</code></pre>
<p>COMMENTS (50)</p>
<p>Because nurses were in such high demand, they said, Barron’s degree was going to be like a guaranteed paycheck. Or so she thought.</p>
<p>Turns out Barron will be lucky to land work in Boston after she graduates later this year. The 22-year-old Newton native will be saddled with more than $100,000 in student loans and anticipates moving back to her parents’ home.</p>
<p>“I really hope I can get a job,” she said during a break from class Thursday. “It’s frustrating. And it’s scary to think about the future.”</p>
<p>Because of the recession, nursing jobs are scarce for the first time in years. In Massachusetts, vacancy rates on nursing staffs have fallen to 4 percent this year, down from 5 percent in 2007, and 10 percent in 2002, when there were the most openings, according to the Massachusetts Hospital Association. As a result, many nursing students on the cusp of graduation are scrambling to find employment…"</p>
<p>The economy is clearly the 800-lb gorilla here. But there is something else that is only mentioned in passing: the academic version of “over building”. In response to previous high demand for nurses, lots of institutions in the greater Boston area started and/or expanded nursing programs. From the article:</p>
<p>“In recent years, several area nursing programs have been created to train people seeking to enter the profession from other careers. Many also offer master’s degree programs to help increase the number of nursing instructors.”</p>
<p>I fear the same thing is happening with Elementary Education at both the bachelors and masters levels. We keep seeing articles about teacher shortages in the Boston area and nationally. But this is totally bogus in MA. I know career changers with MA degrees who have been scrounging to find jobs for the last five years; and when they do find something they are often grossly underpaid.</p>
<p>Well, I’ve been an RN for 21 years and have never had any difficulty in finding a job. I’ve been a bedside nurse, management, and currently I work in an office job reviewing documentation. I feel that I’m paid relatively well for the job that I do. Although a degree as an RN won’t make you wealthy, I think that it will always offer you a career with a decent income and a wide variety of interesting and challenging positions. I’ve loved every one of my jobs and am thankful that I’ve been able to change my career path to align with the stage in life that I am in.</p>
<p>A more accurate title for this thread would be, No Guarantees: Nursing job at Boston’s top notch hospitals. The article also said that the glut is temporary. </p>
<p>I don’t have a lot of sympathy for college grads who will not move to find their first job (one woman had to move all the way to…Vermont) nor for those who will not take lower paying jobs in their field to build up experience.</p>
<p>hospitals are being very cost concious on all levels. The highest budget item is nursing. It is very complicated with reimbursement etc… I think this will change, as I have seen this in my years as a nurse. However, I have had this discussion with many people and they all differ on opinion. I do not feel private is the way to go with nursing, the education at a state school is superb, the cost so much lower, and when you get in the job market-no advantage. But many friends I know send their kids to private for the experience. In this economy we really don’t have the luxury. The nursing job market will turn around, I have seen this in cycles.</p>
<p>$100k in loans is absolutely ridiculous. Take a look at the [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.org) calculator.</p>
<p>$100k at 8.2% (if you could get it), with a 1% origination fee, paid off over 10 years is $1,236.23 a month. At 10% of gross income, it would require an annual salary of $148,347 starting the day she left college. At 15% of gross income, it would require an annual salary of $98,894 the day she left college.</p>
<p>The median salary of a BSN nurse in Boston (more than 5 years experience) is $66k. At that rate, it is more likely she will be bankrupt than she will ever own a house. </p>
<p>In a good economy, she couldn’t pay it off.</p>
<p>There is no degree that will guarantee employment in a particular small area. Many MD’s from Harvard and PhD’s from MIT have to be willing to relocate for that first “real” job.</p>
<p>We are a small city (~100,000) and there were 43 jobs posted for RNs in today’s paper. As pugmadkate already stated, the jobs are there, but “there” may not necessarily be where you are.</p>
<p>Agree with Mini regarding loan amount. You can still become an RN with a 2 yr degree from a community college. With that choice available, that degree of debt is just a poor decision.</p>
<p>I concur with the above posters. I work for a health system with 30+ hospitals in Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico. Our hospitals are seeing a nursing shortage and are hiring big-time!</p>
Although the BSN nursing mafia has seen to it that these are considered a lesser degree and their recipients are paid less well even if they do the same job.</p>
<p>That may be true, but in the three hospital systems that I have worked in the salary difference between BSN and Associates degree has been negligible. Also, once you are employed most hospitals will subsidise any further education toward an advanced degree.</p>
<p>The elementary ed glut has already happened here in the Chicago suburbs – no shortage of teachers here.
As others have said, the student specifically wanted a job in Boston. I’m sure if she’s even the least bit flexible, she will have no trouble getting a job.
The loans are a different matter – what were they all thinking (she and parents), indeed.</p>
<p>“Although the BSN nursing mafia has seen to it that these are considered a lesser degree and their recipients are paid less well even if they do the same job.”</p>
<p>Not where I live. They are paid exactly the same. Actually, not true either. If the RN with the Associates Degree has two extra years of experience (as s/he would), s/he is paid MORE than the BSN coming out of school.</p>
<p>^Don’t know which is exception and which is rule but I suspect yours is the former. Some hospitals here will not even hire nurses without BSN, even if they have a BA/BS in addition to their Associates degree.</p>
<p>Maybe DW should have stayed in Seattle (certainly would have been her preference).</p>
<p>^ the BSN degree is more geared toward nursing administration type jobs. It clearly isn’t a requirement for the RN license, so there is no difference in pay for the same job (at least where I’ve lived). A hospital would be out of their minds to require a BSN for all nurses.</p>
<p>This is where the BSN mafia comes in. Since nurse hiring is done by nurse managers, who usually have BSN (or higher) degrees, they can devalue the AA degree, to the advantage of those with a BSN. As I noted, where I live, there is a pay differential (which, while small, adds up over the lifetime of a nursing career - for the exact same job). And some hospitals must be out of their minds, because they do not hire AAs.</p>
<p>Additionally, the BSN is not intrinsically geared towards nursing admin. The difference in actual nursing-related classes vs. the AA degree are often “soft” courses such as nursing research. The 4 yr degree obviously entails more coursework than the 2 year, although these are often distribution requirements (and the student with a BA/BS + AA will have taken more of these than the BSN).</p>