ATLANTA — The 16 Southern Regional Education Board states and the District of Columbia face a shortage of registered nurses that is expected to increase dramatically as the aging population’s health care needs explode, a new SREB report shows.
SREB states and the District of Columbia are projected to have nearly 40,000 job openings for RNs every year through 2014, according to the report from the SREB Council on Collegiate Education for Nursing. Yet the Council found that more than 26,000 qualified applicants were denied admission to collegiate nursing programs in the region in 2006, mainly due to lack of nursing faculty and facilities to teach them.
“The South cannot solve the registered nursing shortage without solving the serious nursing faculty shortage,” said Barbara Williams, the chair of the Department of Nursing at the University of Central Arkansas and the Council board member who prepared the report. “Until states make creating more nursing faculty a priority, applicants will continue to be turned away.”
The shortage of registered nurses is widespread in urban and rural areas across the South and the nation, the report notes. By some estimates, the shortage could grow to more than one million nurses nationwide by 2020. To address the need, the SREB Council on Collegiate Education for Nursing works to strengthen schools of nursing at colleges and universities throughout the region, helps develop strategies to expand enrollment and tracks current legislation on nursing issues.
$5 Billion Economic Benefit
The new SREB report also highlights the resulting state tax revenue that would be generated and the potential economic benefit to communities if nursing positions were filled. If the nursing shortage was resolved, the earnings of the new RNs would pump more than $5 billion annually into local communities throughout the region, the report shows. SREB states that collect state income taxes would gain from $1 million to nearly $13 million each year in new tax revenues.
Since the late 1990s, the SREB Council on Collegiate Education for Nursing has called for the nursing faculty shortage to be a higher priority in each state. Through the Council, SREB has been a leader in addressing issues facing nurses and nursing education for 40 years.
For more information, contact SREB Communications. Or read the full report, The Economic Benefits of Addressing the Nursing Shortage.
SREB, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, advises state education leaders on ways to improve education. SREB was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to help leaders in education and government work cooperatively to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region. SREB has 16 member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Each is represented by its governor and four gubernatorial appointees.
