Qualified Nurses with 4-Year Degrees Can Now Teach College Clinical Courses
Gov. Tony Evers’ new emergency rule addresses nursing school faculty shortage.
![Nurse. Photo by Rebecca20162393 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons [ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Surgical_Nurse_.jpg ]](https://urbanmilwaukee.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Surgical_Nurse_.jpg)
Nurse. Photo by Rebecca20162393 (Own work) (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons
Leaders of Wisconsin nursing schools are optimistic a new emergency rule allowing RNs with bachelor’s degrees to teach hands-on courses will help ease a faculty shortage.
Previously, nurses had to hold a master’s degree to teach clinicals, the hands-on training students do at medical facilities. Now, a rule signed this month by Gov. Tony Evers will allow nurses with bachelor’s degrees who meet a specific criteria to teach.
To qualify to teach under the new rule, a nurse would be required to hold an active nursing license in Wisconsin and have two years of clinical experience in the area they would be teaching. They also must be actively enrolled in a graduate health program or have a national certification in the field they would be teaching. Lastly they must practice under a nurse that meets the traditional requirements.
Classroom-based courses will still be taught by nurses who hold graduate degrees.
The requirement change is designed to make it easier for nursing schools to hire clinical instructors, which could in turn allow programs to accept more students hoping to enter the in-demand profession.
Nationwide, over 92,000 qualified applicants were turned away from nursing schools in the 2025-2026 school year due to faculty shortages, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
The issue is mirrored at the state level, according to the Wisconsin Nurses Association. Hundreds of qualified students in Wisconsin are rejected each year.
Wisconsin Nursing Association Executive Director Gina Dennik-Champion said the faculty shortage makes it harder for students to get into nursing school. And that shortage is expected to get worse with 58 percent of current faculty members set to retire by 2030.
“We have all these qualified students that are interested in becoming nurses, but because there are not enough nursing faculty, they’re not all getting into that (nursing school),” Dennick-Champion said. “The criteria remains the same, but it’s the capacity issue.”
A 2025 survey sent to over 800 nursing schools by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing identified 1,588 full-time faculty vacancies nationwide. Many programs also identified a need to create additional positions to meet the demand of students.
The need for nurses is also increasing as the population ages. According to the Wisconsin Nurses Association, the number of people over age 75 in Wisconsin will increase by 75 percent by 2032. That will create a significantly higher need for nurses according to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Nursing Dean Jennifer Doering.
Doering said it’s been a challenge for nursing schools across the state to hire clinical faculty, partly because of the master’s degree requirement. She said the new emergency rule will likely offer relief.
“It is such a massive stress to those of us leading schools of nursing to have to think about the question: Can we offer this course, or do we have to cancel it? Do we have to increase the number of students in a class and reduce the number of sections?” Doering said.
Marquette University’s College of Nursing Dean Jill Guttormson said that up until now, she’s had to refuse alumni with bachelor’s degrees in nursing who are interested in teaching students in clinical settings.
“There is a pool of BSN prepared nurses who would love to take a group of students into clinicals. I don’t think that’s just true for Marquette, I think that’s true across all of our colleges of nursing and schools of nursing in Wisconsin,” Guttormson said. “So that’s an untapped pool. It’s also a really talented group of nurses.”
Evers created a task force related to healthcare in 2024. The task force adopted 10 recommendations with 26 action items focused on addressing healthcare’s largest challenges. Expanding faculty numbers to increase schools’ capacity to enroll students was among the goals.
According to the governor’s office, Wisconsin is joining at least 12 other states in allowing nurses without advanced degrees to teach clinicals. Guttormson has spoken with deans from other programs that already allow nurses with bachelors degrees to teach.
“This is a move for faculty that’ll increase our faculty numbers without compromising nursing education, and so in any of those conversations or when I’ve talked to people from other states where they are allowed to hire more BSNs, it has only been a benefit.”
Dennick-Champion also said she believes the new rule will increase the number of educators without compromising their competence.
“This is a potential solution to helping get those nurses that are learning how to deliver care at the bedside with a BSN prepared nurse who is really familiar with that patient population as well as those diseases,” Dennick-Champion said. “That allows the opportunity to continue to grow the nurse educator workforce.”
Qualified nurses with 4-year degrees can now teach college-level clinical courses was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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