New nursing scholarship offered during times of shortage

Another Texas higher education institution is stepping up to fill the looming nursing shortage.

Beginning this fall semester, Concordia University of Texas will offer a $10,000 scholarship to all eligible students enrolled in the accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. The 16-month program is taught at the private Lutheran university’s Dallas campus and costs approximately $17,300 per term. Four terms are required to complete the degree, which does not include any necessary prerequisite courses.

The Nursing Workforce Development Scholarship is dispersed incrementally throughout the program. Those interested in enrolling this fall can apply until June 14, KERA News reported.

As previously stated in The Dallas ExpressThere is a growing demand for nurses in Texas, and colleges like the University of North Texas have responded by creating new degree programs and courses, including correctional health, to meet the growing need for geriatric patient care incarcerated.

Projections from the Texas Department of State Health Services indicate that while a surplus of nurse practitioners is expected statewide by 2032, full-time registered nurses will be in short supply everywhere except in Panhandle. While North Texas is expected to have a shortage of more than 15,400 registered nurses, the Gulf Coast will have a higher unmet demand of more than 21,000.

Concordia University hopes to create a new pool of registered nurses through this scholarship opportunity.

“We know there is a huge need for nurses,” Dr. KC Pospisil, vice president for academic operations, told KERA News. “We are aware of the nursing shortage not only in DFW, but nationally. So we want to do our part in helping students choose nursing as a vocation and be able to come to Concordia and get their nursing degree.

As Concordia nursing professor India Sample explained to KERA, there is also a shortage of instructors to support nursing degree programs.

Data for 2023 from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing shows a national nursing job vacancy rate of 7.8%. This contributed, in part, to the denial of nearly 66,000 qualified applicants to nursing programs that same year.