I would love to meet all these nurses making over 100K. Hell...even 80K. I'm married to one, and the most she's ever made is in the 60K range.
Sure, if you work two jobs plus overtime, I could see it, but I see this referenced often (often by pre-meds) on here, but have no personal knowledge of any nurse making that kind of money. Sure, the CRNA's do, but that's a whole other bit of ridiculousness with our healthcare system.
OK, well, it depends on experience, geography, area of specialty, if advanced practice or if admin/mgt or not. There can be quite a number of variables with this. 60K is low range if experience, depending on where, depending on off-shift calc. inclusions, and depending upon specialty, and if mgt or admin in included--or if you are a part of research, specialized case mgt--or heck, if you work for a VA hospital. Their leveling of salaries is a world of its own, so yes, there are a number of nurses in certain VA centers that make > $100,000 depending upon how they are, as the government calls it, "boarded." Travel nursing and per diem work can add. RN First Assistants in the OR can make that much--there are indeed areas where six figures happens--sales included. It all depends on your experience, geography, and some of the other factors I've noted.
In my area, an experienced specialized RN, BSN should make around $80,ooo. This is clearly what expect to make in various units in high level hospitals, as an hourly rate. As a Case Mger for peds, different story, b/c its salary, and the hours can be exceeded quite easily--not including on-call, which in this particular area of nursing is very low rate on-call reimbursement. So, in certain areas, that may be salary, so you might be working 70 or 80 hours for that--not necessarily a great deal if you are used to getting paid by the hour--as nurses are. All depends on what you want--or if you are making the trade-off for experience, 70% day work, 50% travel, and to get leadership and CM experience. Some case mgers mostly work from home, so they accept that salary and those hours. Travel nursing has tons of variables too, so you can't always count on that to be higher end.
CRNAs, full-time, around where I live, definitely make well over $140+, especially with experience.
Various advanced practice RNNPs can make %90,000 to ~$100,000 depending on if they are working in the hospital, say ED or ICU-NICU NPs, etc, and covering on off hours versus whether or not they are functioning as NPs in Peds or FP.
Those at the top are the nurses with Masters or doctoral degrees and are directors of busy hospital cardiac centers or those that are hospital CNOs--and of course experienced CRNAs.
If you are tenured as a nursing professor w/ a doctoral degree in many universities around here, you will make over $100,000 full time. If you get into medical writing, depending on experience, you can make six figures. If you do specialized medical equipment or pharm sales for large companies, you have the potential to make well over $100,000--but you don't necessarily have to have a BSN for that--healthcare experience of some time with a BA or
BS and the ability to network and sell can get your there.
