Are Student Drop Out Rates Affecting the Nursing Shortage?

Earlier this week, my class was unfortunate enough to have another classmate drop out of nursing school. This is the tenth person who has dropped out since we started nursing school last fall and drops our total class size to merely 25 students. If 10 students dropped out in 18 months, how many students will be left when we graduate in a year? This makes me wonder whether the drop out rate affects the overall nursing shortage in our country.

It seems that every nursing school has long wait lists and small class sizes. This makes getting accepted into nursing school more and more difficult, as more people apply every year. It seems unfortunate that some willing students are not accepted because their GPA was not as high as another student who ended up dropping out anyway. But how is this problem solved?

After doing some research at my school’s library, I could find no recent studies on the relationship between student nurse drop out rates and the current nursing shortage in our country. How do we help student nurses make it to graduation? Or how do we ensure that those who are accepted into nursing school are the ones who are in it for the long haul?

Now granted there are many reasons why people drop out of nursing school. Family concerns, finances and health concerns are just a few of the understandable issues that can cause a student to withdraw from the program. But what are the reasons that students drop out that are preventable? If we can identify these problems perhaps we can provide the support these students need to make it to graduation.

What are your thoughts on this? Does your nursing school have programs in place to help students make it to the end? Have you found any recent research on the nursing shortage and student drop out rates?