Online Nursing Degrees are Popular in Ohio

While traditional brick-and-mortar nursing schools turn away thousands of applicants they cannot accommodate, online schools are blitzing Ohio with radio and TV ads and billboards, and one company is honing a for-profit program to help meet the burgeoning demand for nurses.

In the late '90s, hospital cutbacks under managed care led to fears of an oversupply of nurses, and some training programs shut down. Then, a shortage developed. Some projections say that as early as 2010, there will be 300,000 nursing vacancies nationwide, and 1 million by 2020. Nursing is rated the No. 1 growth profession in Ohio and nationally. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services projects the graduation rate at traditional nursing schools to remain flat at about 70,000 a year, which could mean 36 percent fewer nurses than the number of jobs available in 2020. But the department expects training to catch up. "As the nursing shortage becomes more severe, market and political forces will create pressures that will increase supply, decrease demand, or both," an agency report concludes.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing says 42,866 qualified students were turned away in 2006, although enrollment is rising as quickly as colleges try to accommodate more students. Schools like the University of Phoenix, the nation's largest for-profit university, are among the chief proponents of distance learning to help meet the need for nurses. The University of Phoenix, founded by billionaire John Sperling in 1973 and owned by the publicly traded Apollo Group, has 100 campuses and 159 learning centers in 39 states, including three in Ohio. The Cleveland location is the only one in Ohio that operates a nursing program.

The Alliance for Nursing Accreditation endorses online nursing degree programs as long as programs meet the same standards and accreditation criteria as traditional schools.

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Earning your advanced nursing degree online is easy! You will attain your advanced nursing degree when and where you have the time-at work, at home, it's up to you;
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