More enroll in programs to ‘make a difference’
Michelle Andrews-Kaiser Health News
Last December, Mirande Gross graduated from Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, with a bachelor’s degree in communications. But Gross has changed her mind and is heading back to school in May for a one-year accelerated nursing degree program. The pandemic that has sickened more than 27 million people in the United States and killed nearly 500,000 helped convince her she wanted to become a nurse.
“I was excited about working during the pandemic,” Gross, 22, said. “It didn’t scare me away.”
Enrollment in baccalaureate nursing programs increased nearly 6% in 2020, to 250,856, according to preliminary results from an annual survey of 900 nursing schools by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
“In the pandemic, we saw an in-creased visibility of nurses, and I think that’s been inspirational to many people,” said Deb Trautman, president and CEO of the association, whose members represent nursing programs at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels. “It’s a profession where you can make a difference.”
Two-year associate nursing degree programs seem to be experiencing a similar bump, though hard numbers are unavailable, said Laura Schmidt, president of the Organization for Associate Degree Nursing.
There’s no way to know exactly what is propelling the new applications. But medical schools also saw an 18% boost in applications last year, a jump partially attributed to the pandemic and high profile of key doctors, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during the crisis.
It’s possible that the media stories, social media accounts, and front-line medical workers’ personal accounts of battling the novel coronavirus have played a role. “Nurse” was the No. 1 term that people queried “how to become” on Google in 2020, according to Google trends data.
