If you ever doubted online nursing programs, just take a look at what Pratt Community College in Kansas has achieved. Last year, the majority of students enrolled in the online nursing program managed to pass their national examination exam on their first go, with only 6% failing their first attempt. PCC first introduced their online nursing program in 2006, and since then the average first attempt pass rate has been 85 percent. This figure is similar for students graduating from a traditional brick and mortar campus, and higher than the national and state median pass rate.

Vice President of Instruction at PCC, Jim Stratford, spoke of the effect these results will have on proving doubters wrong. “There are plenty of skeptics who think that quality student learning cannot be delivered via online instruction. The number of skeptics grows even larger when the program is one as demanding as nursing,” he said. Stratford goes on to say that, “The way to counter the skeptics is to demonstrate a high level of student learning outcomes.”

Dean of Nursing and Allied Health, Gail Withers, says that most students who enroll in online programs are non-traditional. That is, they are older students, may be juggling work and study commitments, have been out of high school for sometime or have families to support. The majority of them are female, with the exception of a few male students. Students enrolled in an online degree learn the same material as those enrolled in a ground campus degree, and travel to campus in order to complete skill labs, as well as having to complete the required number of clinical hours at four nursing sites statewide.

At PCC, students begin their nursing program by studying allied health in the first year, in which they obtain a certification as a nurse aide, medication aide, home health or restorative aide. It is necessary for students to earn this certification if they want to enter the nursing program. In the second year, students are able to sit the practical nurse exam in order to become licensed. In the third year, students are allowed to move from becoming a licensed practical nurse to a registered nurse by sitting the RN exam.

Demand for nurses is high, with a predicted 800,000 registered nurses needed across the country to cope with the aging baby boomer population by 2020. Online nursing programs are just as valid as traditional ground campus degrees, and the recent results of PCC just go to prove this.