Excelsior College School of Nursing is the largest in the nation!

[sanantone]

So you're comparing Excelsior to Princeton? Lol. When you speak of Princeton University you are dealing with a totally different demographic than Excelsior College students. Excelsior College is a school like most of the Big 3 that provides opportunity to students that many institutions have left behind. If any school could be selective as Princeton where as they can get the creme of the crop in regard to students, any school would have better pass rates. However, that is not the case. Excelsior College is giving opportunity to students who many insitutions have left behind. If one is to take a visit to allnurses.com you can see the type of nursing students Excelsior has, many are working one and two jobs while being single parents, many had to leave their brick and mortar nursing programs due to life events, many are changing careers, many are doing it to accomplish a life long dream; all races and ethnicities, all ages; theirs even individuals who are retired who have enrolled in the program, because it has always been a life long dream for them to get their R.N. Yet, at the end of the day, these individuals are largely working and studying alone; trying to be self-learners; when self-learning is not for everyone. On Allnurses their are many individuals who have passed the NCLEX the first time, and their are individuals who it took a second time to pass. Yet, you don't hear people blaming Excelsior College because they failed, you see more individuals blaming themselves; noting they should have studied such and such more ect.

While collectively the pass rate at Excelsior College may not be great, when you start looking at individual states and their pass rate for Excelsior College you will find that Excelsior College pass rate is similar to many state schools, and have a higher pass rate in some states than many state schools. However, here in my state (Florida) Excelsior College grads can gain full licensure, and as @GoodYellowDogs stated in states like California that restricts Excelsior R.N grads you can find employment in federal facility/hospital/clinic in CA (Military, VA, prisons, etc.).

Nursing students sue Excelsior College | allnurses

Yes, the demographics are different, but people in this thread are acting as if a school has no responsibility for preparing its students. I worked at a nationally accredited for-profit that admitted mostly economically disadvantaged students of color. They weren't already working as LVNs making $15-20 an hour. They wouldn't even be able to afford to pay for Excelsior out of pocket. However, they had an over 90% pass rate on the NCLEX. The rest of the programs in the school were horrible, but I have to give them credit for taking a very disadvantaged student population and educating them well enough so that they had the highest pass rate in the region beating out traditional universities with a higher percentage of middle class students.