The nursing faculty pipeline is in serious trouble. The vacancy rates scream crisis—hovering around 7.8% to 7.9% nationally, with the West hitting a staggering 9.8%.
And what’s the catch? A whopping 79.8% to 84% of those open positions are begging for someone with a doctoral degree. With nearly 22,000 full-time faculty spots budgeted for 2025-2026, a jaw-dropping 1,588 remain unfilled, and nearly half of those require an earned doctorate.
Let’s talk about aging faculty. The average age of doctorally prepared professors is 61.2 years. That’s right—grandpa might be your nursing instructor soon.
The average age of doctorally prepared nursing professors is 61.2—prepare for some serious generational shifts in the classroom.
One-third of the current workforce is expected to retire by 2025, which means a tsunami of experience is about to leave the classroom. Who’s stepping up? Well, enrollment in PhD nursing programs has dropped 3.1% this year alone and plummeted by 17.5% since 2013.
Schools are literally turning away qualified applicants—5,491 from master’s programs and 4,461 from doctoral programs.
And if you think the recruitment struggle is real, it is. Eight percent of respondents lament the limited pool of PhD-prepared faculty. Noncompetitive salaries? Check. A heavy workload? Absolutely. Additionally, the national nurse faculty vacancy rate weighs down the remaining staff, creating a vicious cycle of burnout and turnover.
So, what’s the future? The pipeline is constricted. Masters and doctoral programs aren’t cranking out enough future educators. With 603 vacancies at the baccalaureate level alone, the growth of nursing programs is stifled. A projected shortage of 78,610 full-time RNs is expected by 2025, further emphasizing the need for nursing faculty. As a result, prospective students should consider various programs that can offer unique opportunities for advancement in this critical field.
If institutions don’t start investing in scalable solutions for educator development—think tuition discounts or mentoring—things aren’t looking good.
The nursing PhD-faculty pipeline is failing. It’s time to face the music.
