Objectives This study was conducted to determine the effect of a hospice and palliative care education program, including empathy education, on nursing students' empathy ability, meaning of life, and perception of hospice and palliative care in fourth-year nursing students at a university. Methods The research design was a pre-post quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group. The subjects of the study were experimental group 41 and control group 40, in fourth-year nursing students at a Women's College located in I City, the study period was from September 5th to December 6th, 2019. The hospice palliative nursing education program consisted of a total of 26 hours, including the empathy education program developed by Jeong Jin-ok and Kim Su (2019). Data analysis was done using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, Chi-square test, t-test, paired t-test using with spss win 21.0. Results The experimental group that participated in the hospice and palliative care education program that included empathy education was found to have statistically significant differences in cognitive empathy(t=2.092, p=.040), emotional empathy(t=2.013, p=.048), meaning of life(t=2..203, p=.031), and perception of hospice and palliative care(t=2.533, p=.013) compared to the control group. Conclusions The research results show that a hospice and palliative care education program including empathy education improves nursing students' empathy ability, meaning of life, and perception of hospice and palliative care, so it will be helpful in developing and applying various educational methods and programs.