If bachelor degrees become a requirement for working nurses, as many suggest they should, students can continue work and attend to family responsibilities with minimal interruption by opting for online nursing school offerings.

At this time approximately eighteen states have laws in the works that would require nurses (within ten years of earning an associate degree) to enroll in Bachelor of Science nursing degree programs, according to an Inside Higher Education article published in February. As this report tells it, a Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching asserts that all working nurses should have bachelor degrees. If you need more information about nursing colleges, look on the internet.

Increasing numbers of students of all ages are reportedly already expressing interest in nursing degrees. The percentage of college freshmen planning to pursue a nursing degree was only 1.7 percent in 1988 and grew to 4.5 percent in 2008, according to a Higher Education Research Institute report cited in the Dallas Morning News. Professionals seeking job stability and to fill what’s been called a nurse shortage are, at the mid-career level, also becoming interested in nursing, the Dallas Morning News reported. And preliminary results from an American Association of Colleges of Nursing survey shows that 2009 enrollment in entry-level nursing degree programs at the bachelor level increased for the ninth year in a row. Enrollments in graduate nursing programs also surged during this time, the association noted.

Online nursing school programs are accommodating a demand for college nursing programs that exceeds the supply, according to the National League for Nursing and Dallas Morning News.

Colleges are moving programs in nursing online at a fast rate, the Inside Higher Education article noted. Of some 621 Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree programs overall, the number of fully online programs grew from 96 in 2007 to 129 in 2009, according to statistics cited in the Inside Higher Education article. And a 2009 Health Affairs report suggested that while the nurse shortage might end in the near future, large shortages can be anticipated as baby boomers age if educational opportunities aren’t expanded. There is an abundance of information about free cna training on the web.

Nurses are reportedly learning and working in different ways as a result of technology. It seems more and more that videoconferencing, hand-held devices and online learning strategies are a part of many nursing degree programs. And with healthcare educators reportedly also placing greater importance on viewing patients holistically, students in some programs are said to care for virtual patients as part of their coursework. Nursing degree programs require clinical training, and many online nursing schools accept transfer credits for clinical hours that have already been logged. Some online nursing degree programs combine in-person and Internet-based offerings to accommodate clinical offerings. Others are challenged by clinical offering shortages and, according to the National League for Nursing, are as a result experimenting with “simulated” clinical trials.

The nursing profession since 1965 has considered making bachelor degrees a requirement, according to a March 2010 report in the Journal of Professional Nursing. And the finest nursing care involves a greater need to understand and apply new technologies and put new findings into practice, writer Ellen Olshansky, a Registered Nurse, reported.

Yet the recent Carnegie Foundation report hasn’t gone without controversy, particularly since some might find college tuition costs prohibitive. At least one non-profit college learned that its associate nursing degree recipients would continue toward a bachelor degree if the price was right and therefore charged a competitive $207 per credit hour, according to Inside Higher Education.

Grants, scholarships and fellowships are offered by schools and federal and state governments for top nursing universities. Large companies have also made tuition assistance offerings such as these available for nursing degree programs.