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<p>Meant to say financial safety as it would have been covered through TAP and Pell. Seton Hall does not meat 100% demonstrated need.</p>
<p>I just want to say that everyone has given such strong advice! This is one awesome group. I understand the desire to go into a direct nursing program. My daughter is just finishing her junior year at Rutgers nursing. It has proven to be an excellent choice. It’s like going to a very small college within a large one. The program is laid out completely so there is very little wiggle room in class choices. I want to add that it is VERY difficult. She studies all the time. While I think it is a terrific college and wonderful career it would not be worth the kind of debt the OP is talking about. Perhaps starting ata CC is the best idea. But I strongly feel she has to eventually get her BSN.</p>
<p>Not only does Seton Hall not guarantee to meet 100% of need, it has a very high sticker price as it is a private school. </p>
<p>The whole nursing situation is a tough one. I don’t know how it is with the CUNYs or any of the NY state schools, but many areas are seeing increasingly selective nursing programs. It’s all well and good to suggest going to a state or community college program, until one sees that the acceptance stats are akin to HPY for admittance. A private venue may be the only way to get the danged degree. </p>
<p>Seton Hall has been giving very nice tuition “discounts” to students these years, but certain programs are cash cows that do not need subsidizing. Nursing may be one of them. I do know of local private nursing school that just rakes the students in, and when I asked about it from one graduate, she told me it was her only option at the time she was applying, and it was her second cycle of applications. She was only accepted at that private program which did cost her and her family quite a bit of money.</p>
<p>Nursing is getting harder and harder to get into! My own kids’ undergrad had 500 applicants for less than a 100 spots for summer promotion into the upper-division nursing program. The average GPA of acceptees was nearly a 4.0! My goodness, one slip up in one class can do a person in!</p>
<p>You are right, nursing schools are very hard to get into. I just read that Rutgers nursing has a 5% admittance rate - holy cow! I think there is a shortage of qualified nursing professors.</p>
<p>^^^ shortage of professors isn’t the problem. There’s lots of applicants because it one of the few majors where you have a decent chance of getting a job that pays relatively well. </p>
<p>I will say the “shortage” is pretty much gone now. As it is it’s very hard for a BSN graduate to get a full time job in a hospital. I don’t know the stats but I’d bet it’s maybe in the 50% area. The rest have to go to visiting nurse, nursing homes, etc for employment.</p>
<p>I have never been able to get a handle on what the situation is with nursing. From all I hear, there are a lot of areas with RN shortages. Getting into a RN program is very difficult with some community colleges with open admissions for just about everything else, requiring strong stats for consideration for nursing. Salaries are considered good and prospects for employment positive. </p>
<p>However, I also hear a lot of complaints from nurses in terms of little say about hours and job rotations, working conditions. I spent and spend a fair amount of time in hospitals, so I do hear the talk. Friends I have who are nurses seem to have little trouble finding part time jobs, however and flexible hours. </p>
<p>I don’t know what the advise should be in terms of what one should consider borrowing for a child who wants to go into nursing and can only gain admittance to a private program that is expensive. On one hand it is a sort of program where finding a community college or less expensive venue is difficult, and employment and pay prospects seem to be good. But then there is the fact that it is always dicey whether an 18 year old is going to succeed in such a program as the requirements, particularly the science is stringent, and is this a risk that someone who is not in good financial shape should be taking in terms of loans?</p>
<p>From what I read, there is still a shortage of qualified nurse educators, which is making it hard to colleges to expand their nursing programs. Maybe the problem is that they should not be looking for educators with PhDs, but should instead be looking for people with more years of real world experience.</p>
<p>Nursing also can cost colleges more per student than some other fields, because of a need for a low teacher-student ratio. Some colleges are charging more for nursing (U.Pitt charges $4K more a year tuition). Some colleges may not expand their nursing programs because they prefer to expand more profitable majors.</p>
<p>Nursing can be a high stress job, which causes some people to leave the profession. That turnover contributes towards the need for new nurses. However, in the last few years, nurses have been staying on the job longer than usual because retirement accounts decreased and because they needed to continue to work to support unemployed spouses or adult children and/or to provide health insurance for their family.</p>
<p>For many medical fields, there are localized shortages. Everyone wants to work in the suburbs of major cities, and no one wants to work in the inner city hospitals that get all the gang warfare victims or the isolated towns in the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>The affordable nursing programs in public universities often have a very low admittance rate - I believe it is under 20% for Pitt and Penn State. At UVa, nursing now has the lowest undergrad admission rate of all of that university’s programs. The admission rate is also very low at U. Delaware. </p>
<p>Therefore, it is important to also apply to mid-priced moderately-selective private colleges. Keep in mind that many private colleges offer large amounts of merit and need based aid, even if they don’t meet 100% of need. I’ve seen colleges where almost everyone qualifies for some type of “merit” aid. Many colleges are now advertising almost-automatic merit scholarships for anyone with test scores and class ranks above a certain amount - as long as you apply before a certain date.</p>
<p>My D got into UVA and U Delaware decided to stay local.
I would love to be an instructor but as stated need the masters/phd. cant fun my kids college and my own and work doesnt pay for enough classes. My neice is doing the CC route sucessfully.</p>
<p>I can understand the low admission rates at the flagship universities, and the resulting need for high stats to be considered for nursing at those schools. But from what I have been hearing, it is difficult to get into some community college and hospital nursing programs too. Like ridiculously difficult. So if someone does have a child who wants be a nurse and the only programs where s/he is accepted are private, it’s not a so simple a matter as to wave them to a community college. It becomes a true issue whether loans should be taken out in such cases.</p>
<p>There is a point,however, that it just isn’t a good idea for a family to take that risk, given the chances of the student not getting through such a program, or the money is just too much even if s/he does. But it is not as simple a case as that of a kid who wants to go to college, but isn’t sure what s/he wants and gets into a school unaffordable without taking some sizeable loans.</p>