Why turn away prospective nurses?
In speaking of the goal of most liberal arts colleges, a friend of mine used to say that they said, “If you can get a job when you graduate, we have failed you.” The Occupy Wall Street protests tell of Ivy League graduates waiting tables, the taxi driver with a Ph.D. in medieval art, the psychology major living in his parents’ basement.
In The Washington Post, Ezra Klien recounts protesters who cite college loans as a rip off. “College debt represents a special sort of betrayal. We were told that the way to get ahead in America was to get educated. We did it. Now we find ourselves in the same place but buried in debt. You lied to us.”
The word “occupational” or “vocational” and associate degrees are not held in high esteem. Yet this is where the jobs of today are and will be for the foreseeable future. Georgetown University researchers estimate that 4 million additional certificate graduates will be required by 2025. All the various health fields, pharmacy and nursing, engineering, teachers aids, electric installers, repairmen for the wind turbines, chefs for the upscale restaurants, IT support and many other fields in industry will need workers.
Three years ago I had a long hospitalization in a DuPage County nursing and rehab center. We had nurses around the clock. As a nurse myself, I saw that the only American-educated nurse was the director of nurses. All the other Registered Nurses and Certified Nurses Aids were foreign graduates. College of DuPage has more applications to their school of nursing than they can accept. What is the thinking of our educational system that we have to bring in nurses by the hundreds while we turn away Americans who want to become Registered Nurses?
Priscilla Weese
Wheaton