The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) recently released its annual survey on vacant faculty positions, providing insight into an important aspect of nursing school capacity.
The survey found that the overall number of vacant faculty positions in nursing schools slightly rose during the 2024-2025 academic year. The nursing faculty shortage only grew by a mere 0.1% this year, bringing the overall vacancy rate to 7.9%. By region, schools in the West hold the highest level of vacancies at 9.8%.
Other key findings include:
- Of the vacant positions, schools reported that 531 of them have been vacant for more than one year.
- 84% of all vacant positions require or prefer a doctoral degree, an increase from 2023 (79.8%).
- The most common specialties with vacant positions were Generalist/no specialty (1,049), Other (13.5%), and Family Nurse Practitioner (8%).
- Nurse Practitioner specialties made up 13.6% of all vacancies.
AACN also surveyed schools to find the most common issues related to faculty recruitment. Results showed that non-competitive salaries were the top issue (37%), followed by finding faculty with the necessary teaching experience (13.6%), and finding faculty with the right specialty mix (13%).
These vacancies are concerning as it can limit the capacity of nursing schools and their ability to graduate more students. To have a strong healthcare system with a robust workforce, we need enough educators to train future nurses. To solve the faculty shortage and boost the pipeline of new nurses entering the workforce, the Healthcare Workforce Coalition calls on Congress to pass the Train More Nurses Act (S.547), which would help increase faculty at schools of nursing, particularly those located in underserved communities.
To read the full survey from AACN, CLICK HERE.