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

[sanantone]

I've met many Excelsior grads through this program, even before I even enrolled or knew about Excelsior College, years prior. All states have specific regulations that must be met to gain licensure, so thats a moot point. Nevertheless, the CPNE validates an individuals clinical competency in the real world with real patients along with a faculty observer who documents all of their skills, clinical judgment, as well as patient interaction using psychometrics. If you failed the test you were unprepared, and lacked the knowledge.

If states are creating additional requirements for Excelsior graduates, only, then it is not a moot point. It's not a matter of Excelsior not meeting requirements that already exist or were passed to apply to all nursing schools. Excelsior is specifically named in these regulations. Also, in some states, meeting the additional requirements is not as simple as getting more clinical hours. In Alabama, for example, they usually deny Excelsior graduates who weren't LPNs. People who graduate from a regular nursing program don't have to worry about becoming LPNs first. In Louisiana, if you are an Excelsior graduate who was not an LPN/LVN, then you have to gain licensure in another state and gain experience there before you can gain licensure in their state.

Obviously, if a student fails the CPNE, then he or she was not prepared. The question is: Whose fault is it that the student was not prepared? Excelsior provides no hands-on, clinical training. When their CPNE failure rates were super high, they acknowledged that the lack of clinical training meant that students who aren't licensed healthcare professionals were not appropriate for the program. They are still making changes to the admissions requirements. They now only accept LPN/LVNs, paramedics, and military corpsmen. Not too long ago, they accepted respiratory therapists, certified midwives, and physicians licensed in another country. They've also added additional prerequisites for the nursing theory exams. To me, it looks like they are acknowledging that the CPNE and nursing theory exam failure rates are problems that need to be addressed instead of just simply placing the blame on the students for not studying hard enough.

I'm not saying that the Excelsior program is bad. I just think it attracts more people than it's appropriate for. It's not really a program that trains nurses. Students are training themselves, and Excelsior is just there to verify competency.