OU College of Nursing will admit all eligible applicants to combat nursing shortage
The University of Oklahoma will admit 100% of qualified nursing student applicants this fall, a change campus leaders called historic.
OU President Joseph Harroz announced Tuesday the College of Nursing class this year will increase by 50% in an attempt to address the state's nursing shortage.
OU will admit 555 nursing students this year, an increase from the 366 students admitted to the program in 2021. Only about 62% of the qualified applicants last year were admitted due to a lack of space and resources, Harroz said.
Related: Oklahoma’s nursing shortage existed long before COVID-19, but the pandemic has worsened it
"There's probably not a college in the nation that can say that they're doing this today," College of Nursing Dean Julie Hoff said at a news conference.
More: Oklahoma Health Department ends daily COVID updates; shifts to weekly reporting
OU Nursing School expansion to cost $14 million
The new class will include students seeking a traditional bachelor's degree in nursing and those on a 14-month accelerated degree track. The college plans to hire 21 additional full-time faculty and staff to meet the needs of the expanded class.
The college aims to accept all qualified applicants at least through 2023. Hoff said she expects that will be between 500 and 600 nursing students annually.
Increasing the nursing class this year will cost about $14 million, but that will be offset by additional funding from the state Regents for Higher Education, internal reserve funds and a private contribution from alumni Fran and Earl Ziegler, for whom the nursing college is named, Hoff said.
OU officials also credited Gov. Kevin Stitt and the Oklahoma Legislature for approving last year a sales tax exemption for the University Hospitals Authority and Trust that state leaders said would give the university increased funding to train more doctors and nurses.
Related: Oklahoma tax exemption will boost nurse and resident training at OU Health
State's nursing shortage a long-term problem made worse by pandemic
A couple of years ago, Oklahoma ranked 46th in the nation for nurses per capita, but the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the existing nursing shortage, Harroz said.
"At every turn we've looked up, the answer hasn't been there are not enough hospital beds to heal," Harroz said. "The answer has been there are not enough nurses to attend to all of us that are in need."
At the height of the pandemic, OU Health had 130 empty hospital beds because the facility didn't have enough medical professionals to staff them, Harroz said.
The same problem is plaguing health systems across the nation, he said, calling the nursing shortage a "crisis."
Related: OU Health trying to strengthen nursing workforce amid shortage 'crisis'
Harroz said Stitt's State of the State speech this year encouraged him to explore how OU could expand capacity for more nursing students.
In his speech, Stitt said Oklahoma's universities shouldn't turn away qualified nursing applicants in the midst of a staff shortage.
Stitt praised OU leaders for rising to the challenge.
"In my State of the State (address), we talked about needing more nurses, more engineers, more teachers," he said. "That's what higher ed is supposed to be doing. That's what Career techs are supposed to be doing."
OU's nursing program is the largest in the state. With the expansion, OU is expected to graduate 25% of the state's new nurses.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU to accept all nursing applicants to combat worker shortage
