The University of Tennessee’s College of Nursing will halve the number of students it admits next fall unless it can secure $450,000 in external funding in the face of growing state budget pressures.
Three grants totaling $450,000 have run out, the nursing program has cut positions, and state law requires the college to maintain eight students per one faculty member, but currently mandated state budget cuts could take up to $268,000 more from the budget, which was adopted at $3.7 million this fiscal year.
As a result, the college may have to reduce next fall’s admissions to 48 students, down from 96.
“There’s a huge demand for nursing — and there will continue to be a huge need — but we’re not able to admit a sufficient number of students to help meet that need,” said Gary Ramsey, chairman of the undergraduate nursing program. “This is devastating for these students, but it’s a reality we all have to deal with.”
A 2007 American Hospital Association survey of hospital leaders said U.S. hospitals had 116,000 registered nurse vacancies as of December 2006 — a vacancy rate of 8.1 percent.
Ramsey said the college is working to secure additional funding by March, when the college makes decisions about admission.
“We have applied for grants. We’ve talked to some foundations. We’ve talked to some of the local business people who have health care interests. … We’re asking all the local hospitals to commit a dollar amount to us for anywhere from a two-year to a five-year commitment,” Ramsey said.
Additional funding would allow the college to retain faculty needed to serve 96 students, Ramsey said.
Admission to UT’s college is “highly competitive,” Ramsey said. About 250 to 300 students apply each year. Of 282 applicants last year, 240 had a grade-point average of 3.0 or higher. The cut-off GPA was 3.53.
“What happens is you have 200 students who are well-qualified and certainly able to succeed in the program, but we don’t have the budget to admit these students,” Ramsey said. “That’s a broken system. … It’s very disconcerting.”
The undergraduate applicant pool will grow even larger for fall 2009 as the college implements a new admissions initiative in which incoming freshmen will be able to apply directly to the nursing program and, if admitted, have a guaranteed slot when they enter their junior year.
The college plans to “overadmit” because some students will decline admission, change majors or have difficulty maintaining the required 3.2 GPA.
Currently, UT sophomores apply for junior-year admission to the college and, if denied, about 40 percent leave the university to pursue other nursing programs or majors. Sixty percent remain at the university and either reapply or change majors.
Some UT sophomores have said they are so upset at the current problems that they will not even bother to apply, said Beth Barret, director of student services for the College of Nursing.
“Students are feeling panic, frustration and fear that they’re not going to get in,” Barret said. “You can imagine how frustrating it is for someone who worked hard for two years, did very well academically, then can’t get in. It’s a bad situation.”
The college has operated at an annual deficit, balancing its books with the new funding that comes with each new budget year, Ramsey said.
“Each year that deficit, over the past three years in particular, has grown, so that this current year, starting this July 1, 2008, we were actually $365,000 over budget,” Ramsey said. “That money was taken away on the front end to zero out the previous year’s budget. So that figure has compounded over a several-year period of time.”
As a result, he said, “The current budget, we’re operating at a loss. It is not an adequate budget to actually do what we’re currently doing.”
Future budget cuts also will impact the college at the graduate level. Ramsey said the college is looking at consolidating programs and eliminating some of the concentrations for graduate students.
Ramsey said the college sees more applicants during economic downturns, because there are abundant nursing jobs.
“It’s discouraging because there is such a high demand for nurses,” said Whitney Prude, a junior in nursing. “It just seems counterproductive.”
Local hospitals aren’t happy with the possible reduction in admissions.
“With a nationwide nursing shortage, it is always a concern when a program has to downsize,” said Teresa Gross, Covenant Health spokeswoman. Gross said the change in the UT nursing college “will have some effect” on Covenant Health, but the impact will be lessened due to a partnership with the Tennessee Wesleyan College–Fort Sanders Nursing bachelor’s degree program.
UT Medical Center, however, receives more UT-Knoxville graduates than any other area hospital, said spokesman Jim Ragonese. The hospital hired 105 new nursing graduates in 2008, and 22 of those were from UT.
“It saddens all of us,” said Janell Cecil, senior vice president and chief nursing officer at UT Medical Center. “We’re concerned because UT’s school of nursing is a good program, and we see many of those students come through our program. And we’re about 36,000 (nurses) short in Tennessee — the demand is great, but the supply is little.”
Ramsey said other area nursing schools lack the budgets for increasing enrollment to meet the statewide nursing demand.
“No one is going to be able to pick up that slack,” he said.
Dr. Ruth Elliot, associate dean for nursing at Tennessee Wesleyan, said nursing admissions are strong and resources are committed to increasing the nursing program.
UT-Knoxville’s interim chancellor, Jan Simek, said in a statement, “This is an example of how what happens at UT impacts the entire community and the state. We’re cutting tens of millions of dollars out of the budget at UT Knoxville, this has a dramatic impact on our students, faculty and staff; but there are also consequences for the people of Tennessee who benefit from the services this university provides.” source
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