Road to BSN

National Park College (NPC) is pursuing a change in scope to include a bachelor's degree to meet local workforce demand. The College is not requesting a change in its role as a locally supported community college. NPC does not seek to become a regional university. The College hopes to be allowed to remain a community college that provides baccalaureate programming to answer the economic needs and workforce demands of the City of Hot Springs, Garland County, and the surrounding region.

As part of an 18-month planning process to develop the 2020-23 NPC Strategic Plan, NPC reviewed the mission, vision, and values by conducting focused meetings with state legislators, local elected officials, public school leaders, parents, industry leaders, faculty, staff, and students. The feedback gathered demonstrated strong support for adding bachelor’s degrees, especially in nursing, healthcare, education, and business fields. Students have consistently asked the College to provide opportunities for achieving bachelor’s degrees in poll after poll over the last five years.

A priority of NPC’s current strategic plan is to “strengthen educational and workforce partnerships.” We want to provide relevant career opportunities for our students in support of our community partners. Hot Springs is a health care hub for much of the southern and southwestern portions of the state. Healthcare is the largest industry sector in Garland County and our region. Our hospital partners have expressed a need for BSN prepared nurses. Our job as a community college that has a publicly elected Board of Trustees and that receives public support from the community is to answer that call.

NPC’s Nursing programs are well-positioned to help close the gap for our local health care industry. The College is fully equipped and ready to sustain this added population of students in terms of faculty, staff, classrooms, technology, library resources, etc. The Frederick M. Dierks Center for Nursing and Health Sciences is a modern facility with a state-of-the-art simulation lab.

NPC would be required to develop 33 credit hours of nursing coursework to complete this bachelor’s degree and would likely need to hire at least two new faculty members. NPC employs 19 full-time nursing faculty teaching both the LPN and RN programs, 13 of which have a master's degree or higher. As a result, NPC is well-positioned to offer a bachelor's degree level program of study.

Registered Nursing enrollment numbers have gradually increased over the years. The following are admissions numbers since 2014, when we began our push to help alleviate the shortage of nurses here in Garland County. We have not turned away any qualified students to our RN program for the past several years. We increased our number of admissions from 40 to 85 qualified applicants. COVID-19 influenced admission numbers in 2020 and 2021. Admission letters were sent to 85 qualified students; however, some students chose to decline enrollment due to the pandemic. The applicant pool for 2022 is robust and a full cohort of 85 -90 students is expected.

Chart

*pending final spring grades to determine eligibility of admission.

Count of Student Graduates
Category	2018-2019	2019-2020	2020-2021	Total
AS Registered Nursing	48	44	39	131
AS Registered Nursing LPN2RN*	8	8	8	24
TC Practical Nursing	36	24	29	89
TC Pre-Nursing	56	61	112	229
Total	148	137	188	473

*LPN-to-RN program is an educational path designed specifically for licensed practical nurses (LPNs) looking to further their education and career. Each year NPC sets aside slots in its ASN program for students that possess an LPN license. This three-semester completion allows students to obtain an ASN and take the NCLEX-RN and obtain an RN license.

Earning Power

Bachelor of Science (BSN) vs. Associate Degree (ADN):

(Source: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES))

BSN holders earn 25% more annually than those with only an ADN
Associate degree graduates earned less in 2020 than in 2010
Bachelor’s degree earners earned nearly 40% more annually in 2020 than associate degree earners.

Offering the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) completion degree is based on the findings of the Institute of Medicine’s landmark report,The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health(2011), which identifies the need for nurses to have more education in order to handle greater responsibilities in an increasingly complex health care system. If the public institutions of the state do not increase the supply of BSN level-nurses, then hospitals will come to depend on private, out-of-state institutions to fill the gap resulting in economic resources being taken from Arkansas. The NPC Associate of Science in Nursing (ASN) program is a timely and cost-effective educational strategy to increase the pipeline of registered nurses into the community and surrounding area.

An EMSI economic modeling analysis of job postings in the 50-mile radius of NPC indicated 47,177 unique job postings for registered nurses from September 2016 – May 2021, 5804 of which specifically required a BSN. The BSN programs at UAMS, UALR, and HSU produced nearly 400 graduates combined in 2019 whereas the labor demand in that region in 2019 was 3300 unique jobs. In January 2021, there were 3420 unique job postings for registered nurses with a median salary of $91,000.

Bullets from paragraph above:

47,177 unique job postings for RNs from Sept. 2016 to May 2021.
5,804 required a BSN
Median salary of $91,000
3,420 unique RN job postings in Jan. 2021
Universities in the region produced less than 400 BSN graduates in 2019 combined

While opponents may argue there is not enough demand for another BSN-level program in the state or region, this ESMI data demonstrates that the need exists at least in central Arkansas. Furthermore, in Garland County and the surrounding region, especially west and southwest of the county, there are a number of Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) and ASN qualified nurses who are place bound. Traveling beyond 40 miles to a university presents a hardship and high-speed bandwidth internet services are not common among rural families even if the services may be available via satellite or another provider. Having a BSN program at NPC will help meet the demand of many non-traditional, practicing nurses in the region seeking a bachelor’s degree. This degree offering will help them attain better pay and benefits, and it will assist in meeting the needs of our local hospitals who are continuing to navigate a shrinking nursing workforce.

Timeline

August 2021 - NPC Board of Trustees approved a resolution to investigate the feasibility of offering bachelor's degrees.
November 2021 - NPC Curriculum and Assessment Committee approved an RN-to-BSN program following research and development by the NPC Nursing Division.
December 2021 - NPC Board of Trustees approved the curriculum for the college's first bachelor's degree, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
January 2022 - NPC submitted request for role and scope change to Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
April 2022 - Arkansas Department of Higher Education Coordinating Board denied NPC’s request for role and scope change. View the recording.