By Jodi Helmer

Hospitals and health systems have invested in recruitment bonuses, retention programs, and flexible staffing models in an effort to address the nationwide nursing shortage, but one of the biggest barriers to building the nursing workforce starts before registered nurses (RNs) ever make it to the bedside: There are too few nursing faculty to educate the next generation of nurses.

During the 2024-2025 academic year, nursing schools turned away 80,162 qualified applications. The rejections weren’t due to poor grades, low test scores, or a lack of commitment to the nursing profession. Instead, prospective students were turned away from nursing programs because there were not enough nursing faculty to teach them. A lack of clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints were also factors.

“Having this faculty shortage is one of the main barriers to us increasing our numbers [of registered nurses],” explained Julie Sanford, PhD, RN, chair of the AACN Board of Directors and the Angelyn Adams Giambalvo Dean of The University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “It’s a tremendous problem.”

The consequences of the nurse faculty shortage can be felt throughout the healthcare system. In addition to longer wait times in emergency departments, delays in routine care, and more errors, nursing shortages strain hospital resources and increase burnout among nurses at the bedside.

“You’ll see call lights going unanswered, pain medications not being delivered on time because they just won’t have enough people doing the work that has to get done,” said Rayna Letourneau, PhD, RN, executive director of the Florida Center for Nursing and associate professor in the College of Nursing at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. “Some people may think it’s a pretty simple solution: If you need more nurses, just [educate] more nurses, but nursing education is so complex.”

A Workforce Bottleneck

Currently, there are 1588 faculty vacancies nationwide. The highest vacancy rates were in the West and North Atlantic regions, while the Midwest and the South had the lowest faculty vacancy rates. These shortages affect every stage of the nursing pipeline from pre-licensure students to experienced nurses seeking graduate education.

“If we continue to not have enough nursing faculty, we’re going to continue to turn away qualified candidates from our nursing education programs,” Letourneau said. “We don’t want to have qualified people not be able to pursue their dream of being a nurse because we don’t have the capacity to educate them.”

The problem extends beyond undergraduate programs. Thousands of applications to graduate nursing programs — the education required to prepare advanced practice nurses, researchers, and nurse educators — were also rejected due to faculty shortages, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN).

“Not only are we turning away individuals who want to become nurses who are not able to get a seat but we’re turning away individuals who want to become nurse educators,” said Sanford.

Hospitals and health systems are already struggling to recruit and retain nurses. Without enough nurse educators, it’s challenging to address a nursing shortage that is projected through 2038.

Compensation is among the biggest reasons that RNs choose to remain in clinical roles instead of becoming nurse educators. The median wage for nurses in advanced practice roles is $129,480 compared with $93,958 for nursing professors with graduate degrees. Taking on student loans to earn an advanced degree only to accept a lower-paying academic position creates a difficult financial equation for RNs-turned-nurse educators.

“The salary discrepancy from nursing faculty to clinicians needs to be addressed,” Letourneau said. “Our academic institutions are often limited in being able to increase faculty salaries based on tuition rates and other state-level regulations and policies.”

The transition from bedside nurse to educator also requires new skills. While nursing schools have often recruited experienced clinicians and encouraged them to teach, success in the classroom requires competencies beyond clinical expertise. Letourneau noted that evaluating students is much different than caring for patients on a unit. Too often, nursing schools fail to provide adequate training, mentorship, or other support that nurse educators need to succeed.

Looking Beyond Traditional Solutions

Solving the faculty shortage will require coordinated action from academic institutions, health systems, and policymakers. Expanding academic-practice partnerships like those at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and the University of Minnesota School of Nursing would allow healthcare organizations and universities to share resources and create joint faculty appointments. Letourneau noted that some Florida hospitals already pay for faculty positions because they recognize that nursing schools are the pipeline for their future workforce.

“It’s just great partnerships that we’re establishing and enhancing,” she said.

Sanford sees similar innovation across the country. At the state level, Colorado, Georgia, and South Carolina are among the states offering tax incentives for nursing faculty. In 2022, the University of California, Davis, invested $6 million to expand the pipeline of nurse educators.

Federal programs are focused on the issue, too. The federal Nurse Faculty Loan Program (NFLP) provides low-interest loans for RNs who enroll in advanced nursing education degree programs and loan cancellations for those who become nurse faculty.

Policymakers are also pursuing solutions. The proposed Nurse Faculty Shortage Reduction Act was introduced in January to provide financial support to new and early-career faculty members while complementing NFLP. Other proposals would expand loan forgiveness, increase faculty salaries, and provide tax incentives for nurses who serve as clinical preceptors.

“[The proposed legislation] augments faculty salaries so that we can help nurses not take a pay cut to do nurse faculty roles, [and] that is a very important piece,” Sanford added. “The nursing shortage is an outcome of the nursing faculty shortage, [and] we have got to have support to address the nurse faculty shortage problem in order to increase our numbers of nurses.”