Nursing schools in South Florida

South Florida has a large number of nursing schools, some of them public, and many private schools. The admission in the public schools is very restrictive, only a small number of students are admitted every year. The competition is so steep because of the public schools better reputation and also because of the convenient tuition.Private nursing schools are more flexible, but the tuition is very expensive.

This article includes a list of public and private accredited nursing schools in South Florida. I tried to include the admission requirements, tuition and other details I've found out.

University of South Florida is a public university located on the west coast of Florida, near Tampa.It has a variety of nursing programs: bachelor, master and doctoral degrees, and a program for RN's who want to earn a bachelor degree in nursing.

For the bachelor degree in nursing generic program, the requirements are a GPA higher or at least equal to 3.2 in all undergraduate work, completion of certain prerequisites and a written statement or essay.

Florida Atlantic University offers a large number of nursing programs, starting with bachelor degree in nursing and ending with doctoral programs. They have two bachelor degrees, one "traditional" -for students with at least 60 college credits-, and an accelerated nursing program, for people who have another bachelor degree. Before applying to any of those two programs, you need to have finished prerequisites (they require two to four semesters). The tuition is acceptable (about 10.000 USD after finishing the prerequisites).

Formerly known as "Palm Beach Community College" (PBCC), Palm Beach State College has two nursing programs that end in awarding an Associate of Science Degree in Nursing: a full time and a part time program. The part time program starts every year in January, and the full time program starts in January and in August each year. The requirements for admission are a certain number of prerequisites (but they advise you to finish both the prerequisites and the corequisites before starting the program, because it is very intensive), the HESI admission test, and a Pro-calc test. They use a points system for admission, so they don't have waiting lists. Tuition is very affordable, about 5000$ after finishing the prerequisites and corequisites.

The part time program has classes during Thursday evenings, and the clinicals are held Saturday morning, and it takes about 3 years (including summer semesters), versus the full time program, who can be completed in two years (4 semesters) with summers off.

Starting in January 2011 Palm Beach State College also will begin to offer a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing (BSN) for RNs who want to advance their career and education.

Broward College also offers an Associate in Nursing Degree program. The requirements are very similar to those of PBSC's, except that they don't ask for NLN test, but for HESI exam.The two major criteria that they use for admission is the GPA in the prerequisites and the score at the HESI test (the higher the better). Broward College will offer a Bachelor Degree in Nursing starting January 2011, for students who hold an RN license.

As far as I know, Broward College doesn't offer a part time nursing program.

Both Broward and Palm Beach State College offer transition nursing programs (LPN to RN and Paramedic- RN).

 Miami Dade College also offers a variety of options for those interested in studying nursing: they offer a bridge program( LPN to RN), an Associate of Science Degree in Nursing (both part time and full time) and an accelerated program. The admission requirements are the completion of certain prerequisites and the TEAS exam.

The approximate cost of tuition for the generic program is about 7000 USD (including prerequisites) and for the transition program about 4500 USD. (for the in-state students)

Nova Southestern University is a private institution accredited in 2006 to offer bachelor and master programs in nursing (the accreditation ends in 2011, but I think it will be extended). Starting January 2012 they will offer the Family Nurse Practitioner Master of Science in Nursing and the Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP). They also have an RN-BSN and a RN-MSN bridge programs.

The BSN generic program starts twice a year, in January and August. Admission requirements are at least 36 college credits (including certain prerequisites) and a GPA of at least 3.0.

Tuition is on the expensive side: as of 2010 it is about 20,000USD/year, plus other fees.