The Indiana University Nursing Program has decided to increase the admission acceptance rate to an additional 40 students per undergraduate class due to the current nursing shortages at Indiana University Health and across the U.S.
Due to COVID-19 and the high intensity of the nursing field, many nurses in Indiana and the U.S. have put their scrubs aside. This has caused numerous shortages in many medical-operated facilities.
The traditional nursing track used to accept 80 students but now will be accepting an additional 40 each year after a $16 million dollar gift from Indiana University Health. This will also include upgrades in classrooms and labs, faculty and staff education, and student support services.
According to Interm Nursing Dean Angela Opsahl “the state of Indiana will need an additional 5,000 nurses” by 2031 to meet the growing demand for medical care.
Indiana will need an additional 1,300 nurses to graduate from nursing programs within the state by 2030 to remedy the amount of jobs available.
IU’s nursing program’s prestigious admissions process requires students to have a GPA of 3.8 or higher. Students also must complete the rigorous coursework to apply to the BSN program.
The coursework includes pre-nursing prerequisites Psychology 101, Anatomy, Physiology, Calculus, and others before sending their applications.
For students like Madison Moeller, each applicant now has a 50% greater chance of being accepted into the program. In the fall of 2023, 40 more students will be added to the program plus the 80 that annually have been selected in previous years.
“I hope that more people are able to apply and get in,” Moeller said. “I know a lot of other pre-nurses right now and they’re so excited to study and hopefully get in the program.”
Indiana University will now have a 25% increase in graduates with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Those students will also have access to the brand-new IU Regional Academic Health Center alongside the IU Health Hospital in Bloomington.
“We need more nurses, the more we take, the more we’ll get,” McGarty said. “Having more people in your program just gives you more connections and resources if you need help with something.”
IU Health is one of the many organizations facing adversity. The School of Medicine clarified a three-year grant to the Indiana nursing programs across the state a total of $416 million dollars to combat the current shortage effects.
This expansion will not only happen in Bloomington but across the state of Indiana. IUPUI and IU Fort Wayne are also combatting this shortage by expanding their program sizes. IU Fort Wayne and IUPUI.
IU Fort Wayne expanded its program by 25% and IUPUI by 50%.
Additionally, the school has offered education to nurses worldwide for over 100 years and has over 22,000 alumni. According to U.S. News and World Report, Indiana’s Nursing Program is ranked among the top 30 nursing schools.
“We have exceptional faculty and staff that work hard every day to meet the needs of our students and I’m just really excited to see what things our students will accomplish,” said Opsahl. “They are exceptional students and we know they’re going to accomplish great things in their lifetime.’
