Kansas Legislature misdiagnoses shortage of nurse instructors | Opinion

When a profession is in high demand but short supply, the laws of supply and demand are clear.

Wages rise. Scarcity forces employers to compete, using higher salaries to attract workers.

Those higher wages also send an important signal, drawing in new people and easing shortages.

This evidently does not apply to Kansas’s nurse educators.

Despite broad agreement that educator shortages are a central driver of the state’s nursing shortfall, pay remains unchanged.

When lawmakers turned their attention to the problem, they had a choice.

They could address compensation and let the market respond. Or they could weaken teaching qualifications, hoping to coax more nurses into faculty positions.

They opted to dilute teaching qualifications, stripping away a long-standing credential for nursing faculty.

Now, educators need only hold a degree one level above the students they teach, meaning nurses with bachelor’s degree can teach at community colleges and those having a master’s can teach bachelor’s students.

The Legislature prioritized increasing the number of educators, not understanding the causes of the shortage.

Republican Rep. Sean Tarwater of Stillwell distilled the Legislature’s approach when he said: “Does it really matter who or how the material is delivered? I don’t care if you learned it on YouTube. Let’s get more nurses out there.”

In its 2025-26 faculty vacancy survey, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing asked nursing schools to rank the most critical faculty recruitment challenges. By a wide margin, noncompetitive salaries topped the list, a finding that has persisted for well over a decade.

A lack of qualified applicants ranked last.

Compensation is the problem.

For example, Kansas nursing faculty earn a median salary of roughly $70,000, less than registered nurses at $78,000 and far below other master’s and doctoral prepared nursing roles, such as advanced practice RN $112,000; nurse midwife $120,000; nurse practitioner, $125,000 and nurse anesthetist $183,000.

The real shortage is nurses willing to take a pay cut to become nursing faculty. Diluting teaching requirements won’t change that reality, especially when RNs earn more than their instructors.

And the problem extends well beyond faculty.

According to the AACN, nursing schools turn away qualified students for several additional reasons including limited classroom space, availability of clinical sites and preceptors, and budget constraints.

Gov. Laura Kelly took no action on the bill, allowing it to become law without her signature.

That decision reflects reluctant consent, acknowledging the faculty shortage while expressing concern about standards and the quality of care.

Given the stakes, her ambivalence is striking. Sooner or later, everyone relies on the health care system.

Jeopardizing the quality of nursing care for a quick political fix is troubling.

Moreover, while debate focused narrowly on nursing faculty, it masked the broader struggle over who gets to set nursing education standards.

On that front, higher education lost another battle, one that merited a more forceful response from the governor.

For the 24th straight year, nurses ranked first in Gallup’s most trusted professions, ahead of pharmacists, physicians, nursing home operators, and even grade school teachers.

That trust is earned, a result of a rigorous educational system.

The solution is not to weaken it, but to invest in the educators that make it work.

— Mark Joslyn is a professor of political science at the University of Kansas.

This story was originally published April 16, 2026 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Kansas Legislature misdiagnoses shortage of nurse instructors | Opinion."