Assessment of nursing faculty retirement projections

Nursing faculty retirement is a critical factor contributing to the nursing faculty shortage.

To assess the accuracy of projections on 2016 to 2025 nursing faculty retirements made in a previous study by Fang and Kesten (2017).

The 2016 to 2022 full-time nursing faculty data collected by American Association of Colleges of Nursing were used to examine the accuracy of the retirement projections for the same years.

The study found that the mean age of full-time nursing faculty decreased for the first time; the number of faculty retirees and their age distributions projected by Fang and Kesten (2017) were accurate; there was a larger loss of nursing faculty at senior ranks to retirements than was anticipated; nursing faculty aged 50 to 59 in 2015 have made significant progress in doctoral attainment, senior rank, and graduate-level teaching by 2022, but they were still underrepresented in senior ranks compared to the 2016 to 2022 retirees; and for nursing faculty with a PhD degree, their growth was slower than their loss to retirements.

The findings demonstrate the usefulness of the specific methods for faculty retirement projections. The decline in the mean age of nursing faculty is a positive sign that there is an increased recruitment of younger nurses into academia. The increase in the number of younger nurses entering academia with Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)-degree preparation can be leveraged through PhD-DNP collaboration to prepare practice-ready nursing graduates who contribute to health care improvements. Nursing schools need to implement innovative strategies to mentor younger faculty for their successful succession.