New Careers in Nursing: Optimizing Diversity and Student Success for the Future of Nursing

In 2008, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation collaborated with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing to create the New Careers in Nursing (NCIN) scholarship program. Two goals of the program were to alleviate the nursing shortage and to increase diversity of the workforce. During this 7-year program (i.e., seven funding cycles), 130 schools of nursing in 41 states and the District of Columbia were selected as grantees, and they awarded 3,517 scholarships to second-degree accelerated nursing students who were members of groups underrepresented in nursing or who were economically disadvantaged. This article describes the demographic characteristics of the NCIN students, degree of satisfaction with their learning environment, perceptions of their mentoring experiences, and self-identified facilitators and barriers to program completion. Data sources for this article resulted from three surveys completed by scholars during their academic programs: the beginning, the midpoint, and within 6 months postgraduate. Results of analysis indicated that NCIN scholars are significantly more diverse compared with the national nurse population, and they reported high levels of satisfaction with their learning environments. Student relationships with peers and faculty improved during the period of program enrollment. Faculty support was the greatest facilitator for program completion, and competing priorities of finances and family responsibilities were the greatest challenges.