2008/09 Budgetary Challenges

Clinical Nursing Support ($7.8 Million)

Each year, California’s demand for nurses exceeds the number of students who are prepared to enter the nursing workforce. By the year 2010, over 47,000 additional nurses will be needed to serve California’s population. Currently, California’s institutions of higher education graduate only 6,000 nurses annually. To meet California’s demand, California higher education will need to graduate at least 9,000 additional nurses annually for a total of 15,000 annually. In 2003/04, only 15 percent to 20 percent of students seeking admission to CSU clinical nursing programs could be accommodated due to limited numbers of qualified faculty, facilities, and clinical placement opportunities in health care facilities.

To help meet California’s demand for qualified nurses, the California State University seeks funding for a second cohort of students enrolled in its Entry Level Masters (ELM) degree program and its Bachelor of Science Nursing (BSN) degree program. Both programs received state budget support in 2006/07 and 2007/08, respectively, for the first cohort of what has been planned as a three-cohort level of sustained expansion of CSU nursing program enrollments.

The CSU is also seeking support for the development of doctoral nursing programs that will train future CSU nursing faculty and advanced practice nurses, for whom accreditors are requiring doctoral degrees as the minimum level of educational attainment.

In total, the CSU requests $7.8 million to increase funding support for nursing production in these three areas. Second-year student cohorts for both ELM and BSN students are funded at a state marginal cost rate of $14,460 per FTES.