UNC School of Nursing keeps quality in spite of cuts

When pushed to adjust to state funding cuts, the University’s School of Nursing chose quality over quantity.

Months later, prospective students are feeling the stress of increased competition, and the school is dealing with the possibility of more than half of its faculty retiring in the next five to 10 years.

Although the cut in enrollment was announced earlier this year, next month’s class of applicants will be the first to be affected by the change.

The enrollment changes were inevitable given the school’s 20 percent funding cut during the past three years, Swanson said.

“You try to squeeze more out of fewer dollars, which we did with the first 10 percent,” she said. “But there was nothing left to squeeze out for the next 10, which will affect what we can deliver on.”

That change is worrisome for students like Melissa Robinson, a sophomore who plans to apply to the school in December.

“Nursing is what I’ve always wanted to do, so I am 100 percent committed to it,” Robinson said. “My worry levels have increased.”

She said some of her friends who were planning to apply to the school decided to pursue alternative majors within the health field after they found out about the changes.

“They weren’t as confident as they were before with their chances of getting in,” Robinson said.

These concerns are not unfounded, Swanson said, given that there are several qualified applicants for every position in the program.

The decrease in enrollment will save it almost $300,000 this fiscal year, with even larger savings in the future as current students graduate, according to a press release.

Decreasing admissions to the program was necessary to continue to meet the needs of enrolled students, said Beverly Foster, director of the school’s undergraduate program.

“We were very deliberate about trying to not affect the quality of the program,” Foster said.

Robinson said this history of quality is what attracted her to the school, and that she is glad it will remain.

“In the end, I think people that are admitted will be grateful that the program maintained its quality,” Robinson said.

“But from the view of people that are applying, it may be hard to look at it that way.”

The school’s quality might also be adversely affected by an aging faculty.

In the next five to 10 years, 50 to 75 percent of the school’s faculty could retire, potentially bringing an entire turnover of its tenure-track faculty, Swanson said.

“I absolutely fret when I think about the potential for retirements in the School of Nursing in the next few years,” she said.

“Truly, the biggest thing we can do at this point is to try and retain the faculty we have, bring their salaries up to that of our peer institutions and recruit new faculty.”

The School of Nursing was also forced to suspend enrollment to its Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science in nursing (RN-BSN) program for registered nurses who hold an associate’s degree. However, according to Swanson, the school of nursing will still offer a master’s version of that program.

The change is an effort to use the school’s resources more efficiently, she said.

“If we were to stop the RN-BSN program, citizens of North Carolina still have access to many other similar programs throughout the UNC system,” Swanson said.

Foster said the master’s program was maintained because it is a highly demanded and unique option that is not as readily available at other institutions across the state.

The decision to suspend the program falls in line with the UNC system’s effort to eliminate redundancy among universities.

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