7 Key Challenges Faced By Nurse Educators Today

The nursing shortage is not only about bedside staffing. It runs straight through the people who train the next generation. A shortage of clinical preceptors and nursing faculty limits how many students programs can admit, which keeps the pipeline narrow even as demand climbs.

Nurse educators are often active clinicians, which keeps their teaching sharp but also stretches them thin. They work short-staffed in both practice and the classroom. The result is a profession under strain, with more nurses and educators looking for the exit and feeling less committed than they once did.

We talked with several experienced nurse educators about the challenges they face, what needs to change, and how nurses can push for it.

The Shortage Hits Educators Hardest

The shortage is set to worsen as the baby boomer generation ages and more nurses retire. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) reports that faculty shortages cap student capacity exactly when programs need to grow. There is a critical need for more educators, and the educators already in place are under heavy stress. Retaining experienced faculty and preceptors means actually supporting their work.

Here are the seven challenges educators name most.

1. Not Enough Resources

The faculty shortage is no secret to anyone teaching in a program today. Schools turned away 80,407 qualified applicants from undergraduate and graduate programs in 2019, up from 68,000 in 2014. One survey of 892 nursing schools identified 1,637 faculty vacancies plus a need for 134 new positions to meet demand.

Erica Jastrow, a nurse educator for over 17 years, sees the human-resource gap firsthand. "In some schools," she says, "faculty members manage all aspects of the nursing program, from admissions to advising to instruction." That load lands on already stretched faculty, and retirements plus departures keep making it worse.

Anne Dabrow Woods, who teaches in the graduate program at Drexel University, says the fixes are clear: raise educator salaries to match the work, build real learning opportunities for adjunct faculty, and use academic-practice partnerships to develop and fund adjunct programs.

2. Curriculum Gaps

Sherri Wilson, DNP, director of health career programs at Stride, points to barriers students hit before and during a nursing program. Some lack the tools they need. Others do not understand what the career actually involves. Wilson's answer is to start earlier, giving high school students ways to prepare through coursework, clubs, mentorship, or dual enrollment. "The sooner we introduce students to the prerequisites, requirements, and opportunities in nursing and nurse education, the better," she says.

Faculty face their own curriculum problem. Most programs want doctorally prepared instructors; the AACN's 2019 survey of vacant faculty positions found that 89.7% of openings required or preferred a doctoral degree. But doctorates are research-focused or clinical-focused, and few programs include the academic coursework that actually prepares a graduate to teach. The curriculum that trains future teachers needs a rethink.

3. Representation in Faculty and Training

Wilson also wants more cultural representation among faculty and preceptors. A recent AACN study found 93% of full-time faculty were female and only 17% came from underrepresented groups. "A more diverse nursing faculty broadens the perspectives of nursing students and provides mentorship for minority nurses," she says.

The Future of Nursing Report 2020-2030 explored curricula that prepare nurses to reduce health disparities, including disparities in infant mortality, using cost-effective strategies like technology and patient- and family-focused care. A diverse workforce serves communities better because it understands and identifies the social determinants of health. "Connecting more nursing students to learning opportunities in the communities they serve empowers them to work with people of different backgrounds," Wilson says.

4. Building Student Relationships

Strong student-teacher relationships drive academic achievement, motivation, and professional development, from elementary school through graduate study. But stressed, overworked faculty rarely have time to build them. That gap can discourage students from continuing their education or considering a teaching career themselves.

Many students also work in healthcare while in school, and mandated hours or extra shifts collide with coursework and attendance. "Showing a student that you care and are there to support them can be the difference between one who drops out and one who succeeds," Jastrow says.

5. Pay Inequality

Pay is a major obstacle to attracting faculty. The median for a postsecondary nursing instructor sits well below six figures, while nurse practitioners earn a median of $129,210. Master's- and doctoral-prepared nurses can earn far more in clinical roles than in teaching, so many never consider faculty work. Closing that gap is essential to drawing quality educators into programs.

H. Eva Hvingelby, a faculty member at Walden University and clinical advisor at Optum, says higher pay and smaller teacher-to-student ratios would make training new nurses more appealing to clinicians, though the changes will not come easily. "It is difficult to implement these changes during an acute shortage," she says, "but not doing so risks further loss of capable personnel, worse patient outcomes, and higher healthcare costs."

6. Too Few Preceptors

The shortage of available preceptors hits students directly. Short-staffed units running high staff-to-patient ratios have little capacity to mentor, which erodes the quality of clinical education for students and new graduates alike.

Tony Anno, a core faculty member at Walden University, notes that both online and traditional programs struggle with limited access to clinical sites and preceptors. Programs can still get creative. Walden, for example, has identified areas where students can complete some or all of their clinical hours through telehealth nursing services.

7. No Time to Update Skills

The shortage leaves educators no time to refresh their own knowledge and skills. In one study, clinical nurse educators named this their most frequent frustration, and it feeds directly into burnout by piling on acute and chronic stress.

Nurses consistently value professional development and see it as integral to better patient care. Keeping skills current is essential when you are training the next generation. "Universities, hospital systems, and other providers should continually upskill their existing workforce and faculty on the latest practices and technologies," Wilson says. As technology changes fast, educators are expected to keep pace and lead.

What Needs to Change, and How Nurses Can Help

Despite the pandemic and thousands of turned-away applicants, enrollment held up: one AACN survey found enrollment rose 5.6% across 956 programs. But real change is needed to raise enrollment further and fill open positions. The pandemic exposed long-standing problems behind the shortage, and Wilson says nurses are "uniquely positioned to become involved in the policy process to advocate for resources to address this complex issue."

Woods sees the path in innovation and persistence. "Investing in learning technologies is no longer a nice-to-have for nursing education," she says. "It is essential." Wilson expects greater adoption of educational technology to come with a funding shift that helps clear the access hurdles educators have faced.

To improve nurse educator retention:

• Close the wage gap so educator salaries align with clinical roles at the same degree level.
• Reduce teacher-to-student ratios.
• Build real teaching coursework into master's and doctoral programs.
• Add human-resource support for admissions and advising so faculty can focus on teaching.
• Recognize and protect the time it takes to build student-faculty relationships.
• Recognize faculty contributions within the program.
• Offer scholarships that steer students toward educator roles.
• Improve clinical working conditions, staff ratios, and work-life balance.
• Give faculty time to update their knowledge and skills.
• Partner academic centers with health systems on adjunct training programs.
• Invest in mental health resources for nurses and educators.
• Invest in innovative technologies.

Advocacy does not require endless hours. Often it is a phone call or email to a state legislator supporting a policy change. Educators can also work with program administrators on creative ways to meet student and faculty needs. Pushing for change is hard, but more colleges and universities now recognize that innovation is the way to ease the shortage and attract qualified nurses into teaching.