AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — A federal change in how some nursing degrees are classified is raising concerns among educators, who say it could make it harder for students to afford school and could worsen nursing shortages across the country.
Leaders at Amarillo College said the change comes as nursing programs are already facing challenges.
Aaron Gann, vocational nursing program director, stated that the college has been compelled to reduce class sizes due to limited clinical space and a shortage of qualified faculty.
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“So with the nursing programs here at AC, we are experiencing a little bit of a decline in our ability to take larger cohort sizes, and a lot of that is in large part due to some competition for clinical spaces,” Gann said. “We have a hard time finding faculty to fill a lot of those spots, and if we don’t have enough faculty, the board of nursing will actually limit us to the number of students that we can take in a cohort because we don’t have adequate faculty for them.”…