TTU Nursing Enrollment Back To Normal For Fall Semester

Tennessee Tech nursing student enrollment holding steady this fall semester after recent low enrollment.

School of Nursing Director Barbara Jared said Tennessee Tech’s School of Nursing typically sees about 600 undergraduate students. At the graduate level, the average is about 140 students. Jared said she believes the drop in enrollment numbers was influenced by the pandemic.

“And I think the more information we know about COVID has helped and now we have treatments and we know that immunizations are working,” Jared said. “And I think for the graduate students especially, in the heat of COVID they were enforced over time.”

Jared said that because graduate students are already registered nurses, dealing with overrun hospitals left little time for grad school work.

Jared said despite nationwide trends of nursing shortages, Tech is seeing steady undergraduate enrollment numbers from students who want to become nurses. She said what it comes down to is not having enough faculty.

“Schools of nursing are turning away 60,000 to 80,000 qualified applicants a year that actually have the grades and the qualifications to be in nursing school,” Jared said. “But because there’s not enough qualified faculty they can’t be admitted.”

Jared said Tennessee Tech is in a good place with its staffing. She said that they do have more students apply than they can admit, but that has been a historic trend.