Tens of thousands of qualified nursing school applications are turned away each year due to limited program capacity, despite an ongoing nurse shortage. In 2026, faculty shortages, restricted clinical placements, and funding constraints continue to create a major bottleneck in the nursing pipeline.
At a time when hospitals across the United States continue to face staffing shortages, one of the biggest barriers to solving the crisis is not a lack of interest in nursing. It is a lack of capacity in nursing education.
