Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
The high demand for nurses at Dayton area hospitals has helped increase enrollment in Wright State University’s nursing school as other programs have suffered.
Enrollment in Wright State’s nursing program has increased by more than 39 percent since 2014. There were 491 students training to become nurses at WSU in 2014 while there were 683 last fall, the most recent year for which data is available.
That growth has come even as the university’s total enrollment has declined by more than 23 percent since 2009, according to WSU. This fall the university has budgeted for a 16 percent decline in enrollment, though a spokesman said the drop is unlikely to be quite that steep.
The great need for nurses has helped the program not just stay afloat during the university’s downturn but expand, said Deborah Ulrich, dean of Wright State’s college of nursing.
“Things are getting better for us and we are producing more and more nurses,” Ulrich said.
Tuition and fee revenue is the Wright State’s largest single source of revenue and it’s dependent on how many students enroll. That means big gains or drops in enrollment can be crucial, especially as the university continues to climb its way out of a financial crisis.
