Enrollment update: comparison of Fall 1984 and 1985 enrollments in American Association of Colleges of Nursing member schools and with trends in higher education enrollments.

Abstract

ECENTLY, INCREASING CONCERN has surfaced about enrollments in college and university schools of nursing, t In this article data are presented on fall 1985 enrollments reported by American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) member schools to clarify the status of collegiate nursing enrollments in a time of fiscal restraint and declining college-age population. Special concern has been voiced about the numbers of new applicants to baccalaureate programs in nursing. ~ The AACN survey gathered data only on total full-time and part-time enrollments in graduate and undergraduate programs. Beginning in fall 1986, the AACN survey will request information about first-time nursing students, in order to track this indicator of the nursing profession's ability to recruit students. Several comparisons are presented here, so that schools of nursing may examine their enrollments in a national context. Comparisons are made between enrollments in fall 1985 and fall 1984, by degree program, by full-time and part-time students, by full-time equivalents (one full-time student = three part-time students), by sponsorship (public, private secular, private religious), by institutional type (academic health center, university, or four-year college), by geographic region, and with national figures on enrollments in four-year colleges and universities.