Penn's smallest undergraduate school churns out some of its highest paid and most sought after graduates, according to a new post-graduation survey on Penn nurses.
"The outlook is bright" for Nursing alumni, said Associate Director of Career Services Sharon Fleshman, who advises students looking for careers in nursing.
Nurses who graduate from Penn have historically had a comparatively easy time finding jobs that they want to keep, and the survey shows that this is likely to continue.
About 5 percent of 2005 Nursing alumni reported that they were still looking for jobs, according to preliminary results from the survey. This is a relatively stable figure compared to that in the previous year's survey, Fleshman said, which showed that 3.4 percent of 2004 Nursing graduates were still jobless an equivalent time after graduation.
Continuing growth in the nursing field is reflected in the recently released National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, which is conducted by the Bureau of Health Professions, a division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
According to the survey, there are almost 3 million registered nurses in the United States today, an increase of nearly 8 percent from the year 2000.
Penn Nursing professor Sean Clarke believes that "the employment projections for the next decade are really fantastic."
He attributes this to a quickly aging population in the U.S., which creates an influx of patients, a trend displayed in the survey.
According to the report, American nurses are also spending more and more time in school.
In 1980, the proportion of nurses with just an undergraduate diploma was about 63 percent. Now, only 25 percent have just an undergraduate degree.
The numbers have been consistently on the rise for nurses with associate, baccalaureate and master's degrees.
Personal advancement in the field is most likely with a master's degree, according to Clarke.
He added that there is a shortage of nurses who are able to teach, which is possible with an advanced degree.
More education "makes people think of nursing as a career for a lifetime," Clarke said.
The salary for nurses -- which has consistently risen over the past 20 years, according to the survey -- may be a powerful factor for some to stick to nursing.
Kristen Novack, a Class of 2005 Penn Nursing graduate, currently works at New York University Medical Center. She received that job offer after working there during her senior year.
Novack is enthusiastic about the rising opportunities in her profession.
"You can pretty much work anywhere you want," Novack said. "I'm very happy with my salary."
According to the survey, the average American nurse's salary has been steadily rising since 1980 to $57,784 per year today.
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