Opinion: Let’s Double ACC’s Nursing Program

It's time for the community to focus and support ACC to double its Registered Nursing program. We faced a chronic and dangerous nursing shortage before the pandemic. Now it is code-red critical as nurses burn out, retire early, or travel to other cities to earn $2,000-$3,000 per week. Local employers desperately posted over 3,000 listings in November.

And that was before the current surge.

ACC has one of the best RN programs in Texas. It scores fifth among 67 Texas associate degree programs ranked by percent of graduates passing RN licensure. Inspired by rewards both financial and spiritual, nearly 8,000 students were enrolled this fall in the health sciences area of study. Nearly 500 had completed their prerequisites and applied for the fall RN program. Yet, ACC admitted only 168. Doubling the ACC nursing program might not accommodate everyone, but it would be a start.

Our crisis has been building for a long time. There's a serious mismatch between the number of local nursing graduates and our population. Our region ranks near the bottom according to the Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies – 23rd of 25 in Texas. We rank 49th of 53 in grads per 100,000 population among cities over 1,000,000 in the U.S. according to the Council on Adult Experiential Learning.

This vacuum invites the private, for-profit, and very expensive schools. Aspen University School of Nursing signed an eight-year lease in Round Rock in 2020. Galen College of Nursing just opened a campus in Austin. They will not be cheap. For example, the federal College Navigator website lists the tuition and fees at Galen's longtime San Antonio campus as $30,190 for its 18-month associate RN program and $65,380 for its bachelor's RN 36-month program. In contrast, tuition and fees for ACC's core, 24-month associate RN program are $9,405 for in-district students and $21,465 for out-of-district students.

Doubling ACC's nursing program would attack another chronic crisis – equity. Our nursing workforce does not look like us. Our region and state will soon be majority of color, but our region's nursing workforce is only 28% of color. ACC's student body is majority of color. Doubling ACC's program would create a healthier balance in our community.

Of course this has a cost and can't happen all at once. Temple College, our neighboring community college to the north, just completed a five-year plan to double its program. A key to expanding ACC would be a new, third Health Sciences Center to complement ACC's Round Rock and East Austin centers. A Hays Campus facility, at the top of ACC's Academic Master Plan facilities wish list, would be a natural.

In the meantime, ACC could continue to grow incrementally, as it has intermittently over the years. Kudos to ACC's dedicated faculty and administration for nudging up the spring enrollment to 176!

We urge this doubling in the spirit of the farmer who wanted to plant a new and special apple tree. When her foreman heard this, he protested, "But Madame, it will take 100 years to grow." Her reply: "Well then, we have no time to waste!"

This op-ed is co-authored by Steve Jackobs, executive director, Capital IDEA; Tiffany Bradley, RN, 2008 graduate, ACC and Capital IDEA; and Joe Canales, former regional VP for HR, Ascension and past board member, Capital IDEA.