Nursing Degrees
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Salaries For Degrees in Nursing
People with a degree in Nursing can work in a variety of occupations. While no one can say with certainty what you personally will do with a degree in Nursing, our survey panel picked the following jobs as likely options:
- Registered nurses
- Licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses
- Nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants
- Physical therapists
- Massage therapists
- Nuclear medicine technologists
- Physical therapist assistants
- Occupational therapist assistants
- Physician assistants (Best salary!)
The median salary for people with a degree in Nursing is $34,352.81. The lifetime value of this degree is approximately $852,636.00.
Salaries are highly dependent on how skilled one is at negotiation, years of related experience, policies at your employer, area, and more besides. The estimates we show on these pages are just that: estimates. Your individual experience will likely vary.
Where does this come from?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, a unit of the US government, classifies all workers into some 800-odd occupational categories. We paid a team of freelancers to get their opinion on what type of degree a holder of each type of job would likely have majored in. For pairs which had a high degree of consensus, we created a link between the degree and the job.
From this, we calculated the average salary for Nursing degrees and converted it into a lifetime value. We then compared it against other degrees at the same level of schooling (such as associate's, bachelor's, or master's), so that you can make informed educational and employment decisions.
What Do Student Nurses Learn?
Nursing schools will train you to work as a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN), or the higher level Registered Nurse (RN) in a hospital or other care setting. Most brick and mortar schools consist primarily of two or four year programs. These schools offer either an A.A. Degree (LPN or RN) or four year B.S. Degree (RN) only. You can find a few schools that offer one year or three year programs but there are very few of these left. The most important thing about the school you choose is to make sure that your State Board of Nursing accepts students from your school to take the state boards for nursing. You can call the State Board of Nursing to find this out.
At your school, you will learn how to take care of a sick patient. You will learn how to bathe, feed, make beds, and deliver treatments to your patients. You will study pharmacology, physiology of diseases, leadership skills, communication skills, and how to access your patients for various disease conditions. You will learn how to carry out and sign doctor's orders, including how to order tests and medications the doctor has ordered. You will be taught how to administer drugs by several methods. You will learn what records the nurse needs to fill out for her patients, and how to do this on computers. You will practice admitting and discharging patients. You will learn how to do wound care and treatments. You will also learn the legal aspects of the nursing profession. Most schools have a practice lab where you can learn procedures before you do them on a patient. Nursing is becoming even more specialized today with master level degrees that allow nurses to become nurse practitioners or clinical specialists. These nurses relate to patients in a manner similar to doctors; they usually work side by side with doctors in clinics and emergency rooms.
Online Nursing Schools
There are online nursing schools for all levels of nursing. Some good online schools for those who want to be an LPN are Bryman College, Concorde Career College, Apollo College, and EPCI College of Technology. On-line schools to move on to the RN level from a LPN are Phoenix University and College Network. There are even more on-line schools to move from the two year RN degree to the four year BS degree or an master degree in nursing such as University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, the Indiana State University, and South University.
Campus-based Colleges & Universities Offering Accredited Nursing Degree Programs
If you relate better to a traditional classroom setting, there are plenty of schools that still provide this type of education. A caveat, here, is that most school programs have a separate admission aside from the school admission. Often, you need to take several years of prerequisites to qualify to enter the nursing major. So your degree may take extra time to complete. Most local community colleges offer a nursing program. Some adult schools do as well. So be sure to check out your local resources.
Four year degrees are offered at most major large universities. Some examples are the University of Southern California, University of Arizona, University of Nevada, Notre Dame, University of Portland, University of Michigan, University of Indiana, University of Alabama, New York State University, and many more. Many of these schools offer master programs as well.
So, if you want to become a nurse, the best way to prepare is to take all the science and math you can in high school. It helps to also take speech, psychology and English classes to learn how to express yourself. It is also a good idea to volunteer at a hospital or clinic setting, so you can see the profession up close. Some high schools offer nurse aide classes which are very good preparation for a career in nursing. The more you learn about your profession, the easier school will be.
Famous Nurses
Some famous nurses include Frances Nightingale, who established new standards for the profession during the Crimean War, Clara Barton who founded the Red Cross, Walt Whitman, the poet, who also worked as a nurse during the Civil War, Mary Todd Lincoln, who also worked as a nurse, especially during the Civil War, Mary Eliza Mahoney, first black
nurse who went on to assist other black women to enter into nursing, and Dorthea Dix who founded and improved hospitals for the mentally ill.
