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Nursing candidates in the San Jos\u00e9-Evergreen Community College District’s associate degree for nursing program receive the same clinical experience as BA students in four-year universities. <\/p>\n
Courtesy: SJECCD<\/p>\n
In California, innovation is how we solve problems. We align systems, scale what works, and remove barriers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet when it comes to preparing the nurses our state urgently needs, California\u2019s higher education system is misaligned, leaving talent untapped and healthcare systems strained. Assembly Bill 2301<\/a>, authored by Central Valley Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria, seeks to address this misalignment.<\/p>\n Consider a typical nursing student at Evergreen Valley College<\/a>. The student completes a rigorous associate degree in nursing (ADN), earns a registered nurse license, and begins caring for patients in our community. However, employers are increasingly requiring bachelor\u2019s degrees. But when our students try to advance to a BA degree, they encounter a fragmented pathway: limited university capacity, higher costs and logistical hurdles that often force students to pause or abandon their goals. For working adults, caregivers and place-bound students in particular, these are not minor inconveniences, they are real-world barriers.<\/p>\n The challenge we face is not simply a shortage of nurses. It is a mismatch between educational pathways and workforce demand. According to the California Department of Health Care Access and Information<\/a>, California will need more than 61,000 additional registered nurses by 2033, with shortages affecting most counties. Even in the Bay Area, where overall supply may appear stable, there is a clear gap by education level. Hospitals increasingly need bachelor\u2019s-prepared nurses, yet the system is not producing enough of them<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the same time, California\u2019s community colleges produce one of the strongest pipelines of associate degree in nursing graduates in the nation. In fact, the California Board of Registered Nursing requires comparable clinical training hours for both associate degree in nursing and bachelor\u2019s degree nursing programs, so our ADN graduates are already prepared to meet the same clinical standards for patient care as graduates with a bachelor\u2019s degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n The gap is not in bedside training; it is in access to the additional coursework required for degree advancement. Yet that advancement is constrained by limited university seats and other structural barriers.<\/p>\n Community colleges are not standing still. Institutions like Evergreen Valley College have developed innovative partnerships<\/a> with universities<\/a>, allowing students to begin bachelor\u2019s-level coursework while completing their ADN. These models accelerate time to completion, expand access, and better align with employer expectations. But they are inherently limited by university capacity, small cohort sizes and uneven availability across regions. They are a promising workaround, not a scalable solution.<\/p>\n