The nursing profession is being goaded into setting nurses up to constantly be working on adding knowledge (ie formal education) as they go... or so it seems. I'm becoming more perplexed at what the industry (which is pushed by nursing academia) has in mind for the endgame. I used to think I had it figured out, but nursing initiatives that focus on nurse's careers and professional education seem to be in this spiral where the answer to everything is more education. Not more skills, mind you, but more education. We simply must have everyone get a BSN, and instead of master's prepared NP's, we need to push everyone into a DNP. Meanwhile the courses that differentiate a BSN from an ASN, and a DNP from a Masters NP are bull... ****e. I feel like its setting up barriers to entry that are on par with artificially restricting supply. To me, it would just be easier to do that by not opening 50 new nursing schools, and 20 new DNP programs every year, but it seems that the nurses in academics are determined to make the quest into the world of butt wiping for RN's into one that takes 4 calendar years, and the pathway to practice as an NP into something that requires an extra year of research and an onerous capstone project. Meanwhile, the rest of academia has found faster and more efficient ways to educate folks. But leave it to a nurse to ruin a good thing. Just last week at work, we gave a project to a nurse to find a solution to, and the only solution the nurse could come up with is to establish yet another physical checklist for everyone to follow to "ensure" that the task gets done. The task in question is one that does not, in fact, require the signature of the patient, two nurses who are cosigning each other, and a review that involves a supervisor... not to mention filing the forms in the patient's personal record. So one nurse, in one week, managed to "fix" a nonexistent problem by adding several time consuming steps as a solution to a nonexistent or rare problem. Sounds silly... yes. But to some nurses or most nursing supervisors, a problem that happens even once is still a problem, so all problems must be solved. Interesting enough, paperwork fatigue is never a problem that needs to be looked at for some reason.
So that's nursing for you. Most of the previous paragraph is probably Greek to anyone but nurses. Short answer... having an ASN won't probably lead to one's demise, but in modern times, there is increasing pressure to obtain the BSN, and opportunities increase for those who have it when compared to those who don't. I started with an ASN, and then got my BSN. I liked how I could work while completing the BSN, but it did require time to complete it. Its annoying, more than anything. The decision of whether to get an ASN or just jump to the BSN isn't really one that can be made in isolation, because circumstances are often varied. In my case, my ASN was insanely cheap, and I was able to easily get into it. I was also able to work while in my ASN program too, which was really nice. But my job I worked in while in my ASN was one that paid really well. If someone is not making that much, and can do an accelerated BSN, then that may be a better deal than taking longer to get the ASN, then the BSN later.
So for example.... my ASN cost me <$10,000, and took 2 years. During that time I worked making >$55k per year. Then I worked for 2 years while I did my BSN completion. The facility paid for it, but if they didn't, that would be roughly $15k. So overall I took 4 years to become a BSN, and it cost me $0 (my facility paid for my ASN too), and I made well over $200k in wages by the time I got my BSN in hand. But that's me. If I had chosen to quit everything and do an accelerated BSN, I'd have had to pay for it out of pocket, and then come up with living expenses for that year, only to come out of it making a little more than I was... on paper it wasn't a good idea. However, had I gotten the BSN quickly, I could have immediately jumped into NP training because even though a handful of programs let you start NP school with just an ASN, everyone else lets you start after your BSN. So if I had the BSN quicker, I could have been an NP quicker.
Lets math out the average person:
Getting an ASN and then working while completing the BSN, and paying for it all out of pocket.... $25,000 tuition, and $110,000 in wages after getting the ASN while working on the BSN, leads to an overall profit of $85,000 (not counting how they made ends meet during ASN school).
Compare that with getting something like an accelerated BSN at a cost of, say, $30,000. A lot of those programs can be completed in a year. That makes them a BSN starting after 1 year, and then making, say $55,000 per year (most likely more, but lets keep it simple). After 4 years they are in for a profit of $135,000 after subtracting tuition (and not counting living expenses for that one year).
Compare with going to a traditional 4 year BSN program.... I don't even want to speculate, because that's 4 years of tuition and living expenses before they get to make money... so clearly that the least best way if you have other options available to you.
But overall, what I went through above is a good example of how different circumstances can mean a different approach might be worthwhile. The combinations of circumstances can seem endless.
I would get the RN the cheapest and fastest that I could, unless I wanted to get to NP school the fastest. If you just want to be a nurse for a while, or forever, then cheap and fast still usually wins, because the BSN can come later. Fast and expensive sometimes works well for some folks, and so does slow and cheap. What doesn't sound great is long and expensive.... that choice is easy to rule out.
