The Ohio Department of Higher Education has given four community colleges, including Cincinnati State and Sinclair, permission to offer a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing.
The permission couldn’t come at a better time, as nursing shortages continue to increase. Locally, there is more than a 13% shortage.
When WVXU reported on Cincinnati State’s nursing program in March, instructors said they were working to get the four-year BSN.
Classes will start in the fall of 2023. Provost Robbin Hoopes says the nursing shortage was probably one of the factors that led to the decision. “It was sort of a perfect storm of factors where it just made a lot of sense to allow the community colleges — if they could identify a need and had a quality program — to go ahead and offer a BSN in nursing.”
This is Cincinnati State’s third Bachelor of Science degree. It already has land surveying and culinary food science. Hoopes says down the road, the school may offer a four-year degree in aviation management.
One big advantage he sees Cincinnati State having in nursing is it’s a diverse campus. “That matters,” he says. “Because in a region like ours, which is racially diverse, if the patient population in a hospital doesn’t mirror or look like the nursing workforce in that hospital, the health outcomes for those patients suffer — literally suffer.”
