Social Determinants and Educational Barriers to Successful Admission to Nursing Programs for Minority and Rural...

In 2010, the Institute of Medicine made a recommendation in The Future of Nursing Report to diversify the student population of the health care professions in order to provide increasing minority providers to meet the culturally competent needs of the growing multicultural populations of the United States (Institute of Medicine, 2010). The Nursing Network and Careers and Technology Nurse Mentoring Program provides a nursing mentor to underrepresented ethnic minority and educationally disadvantaged students and a significant scholarship and stipend for tuition and monthly living expenses. Ethnically diverse and rural students have lifelong familial and geographical educational barriers that prevent them from succeeding. There are a plethora of major environmental and familial factors that need to be addressed by society for these students to be successful. These factors include improvement of county schools by financial support, improving the home environment through social supportive services, and implementing improved parent-child bonding with nurse family partnerships. Nursing faculty must embrace new approaches for increasing the number of ethnically diverse nursing providers through novel admission criteria and collaborative cohort peer-mentoring programs.