Three generations of Delayna O’Daniels’ family have worked as nurses at Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital in Lincoln City.

Following in her mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps, O’Daniels became a certified nursing assistant and began working at the hospital about three years ago. Now, she’s studying for her associate degree in nursing at Oregon Coast Community College.

She knows she wants to stay in Lincoln City. But she’s also trying to figure out the best way to get a bachelor’s degree in nursing, and perhaps a master’s too.

“Education is one thing that nobody can take away from you,” she said.

Her aspirations make her a prime candidate for a new program: a bachelor’s of science in nursing degree that will soon be offered by a consortium of six Oregon community colleges, including Oregon Coast. Designed for nurses who already have their associate degree, it isn’t expected to directly address the state’s dire nursing shortage, but administrators hope the mostly online program will encourage nurses to stay local and offer a boost to their careers.

The six colleges are aiming to get the 15-month program off the ground by fall of 2026, though they’re still undergoing the lengthy process of approval and accreditation. Besides Oregon Coast, the consortium consists of Klamath Community College, Central Oregon Community College, Chemeketa Community College, Linn-Benton Community College and Treasure Valley Community College.

The plan is to run the bachelor’s program jointly, with each school offering seven slots for a total of 42 seats per year, said Holly Nelson, Chemeketa’s chief workforce innovation and community success officer.

One of the consortium’s goals is to encourage nurses like O’Daniels not to leave the area, according to Central Oregon Community College’s Julie Downing, an instructional dean. The program is designed so students can work while taking two classes per three-month term.

“They’ll be able to stay here in their own community,” Downing said. “They can still continue to work in their home community and take classes from their local community colleges.”

At the moment, seventeen community colleges offer associate nursing degrees in the state. Their graduates often get more advanced degrees via options like Oregon Health & Science University’s registered nurse to bachelor’s program. Many also turn to online programs hosted elsewhere.

The chance to get bachelor’s degrees in any field is still quite new at Oregon community colleges.

In 2019, the state passed a law allowing community colleges to develop bachelor’s in applied sciences. But because nursing doesn’t count as an “applied science,” schools had to wait for the Legislature to pass a second law last year specifically allowing bachelor’s degrees in nursing.

To Lesley Ogden, the CEO of Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital and Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital, the program will help prepare local nurses to provide better care: “It sets you up for the leadership and the future.”

With the Oregon Center for Nursing estimating that state programs need to graduate about 1,600 more nurses each year to meet demand, any new initiative stirs up talk of addressing the nursing shortage. But because the community college program only accepts nurses who already have an associate degree, it won’t directly add to the total number of Oregon nurses.

John Wykoff, deputy director of the Oregon Community College Association, said he has acknowledged that the program won’t make a huge dent in the nursing shortage from the start.

“This is not going to solve the nursing shortage,” Wykoff said. “This is going to be really impactful for the students that are in the programs, but … these aren’t easy programs to just ramp up at a huge scale.”

Jana Bitton, executive director for the Oregon Center for Nursing, agreed with that assessment. But she also said the program is poised to keep nurses in rural areas where they already have ties. And for individual careers, she said the program could offer a distinct push forward.

Students can become registered nurses after getting their associate degree, but many hospitals only employ those with bachelor’s degrees, Bitton said. And those working in hospitals make about $58 an hour on average, compared to between $48 and $54 in other workplaces like residential facilities, a 2023 Oregon Center for Nursing study found.

“If you’re going to have a bachelor’s degree and you’re going to be working in a hospital that requires you to have a bachelor’s degree,” Bitton said, “… you’re going to have a better opportunity to make more money.”

Nursing student Jason Kincaid, who’s pursuing his associate degree at Central Oregon Community College, knows that. He wants a bachelor’s in nursing, but he also wants to stay in Bend, where his son is growing up.

Getting to stay at Central Oregon seems like a promising option, he said.

“It’s local. It’s inexpensive. I know the instructors. I know their standards. I know the facility,” Kincaid said. “It takes the unknown factor out.”

Tuition costs are still in discussion; administrators said they’re planning to make it slightly more expensive than the associate degree but cheaper than many other options in the state.

At Chemeketa Community College, which offers a bachelor’s of applied science, tuition and fees for each credit hour cost $212 for in-state students. Nelson said tuition for the bachelor’s of nursing will likely be in that range. Students will need to take 60 credits for their core classes and get an extra 30 or so credits from elective courses or prerequisites they’ve already taken.

Second-year nursing student Susan Oh said she’s appreciated the affordability of Central Oregon Community College, where she’s pursuing her associate degree. As she sets sights on her bachelor‘s, she said she’s interested in the new community college program, especially since she likes the education at Central Oregon.

With the goal of working in acute care at a hospital, having a bachelor’s will open up a huge number of opportunities, Oh said. That includes working in a more intense environment, earning an advanced degree and perhaps becoming a nursing teacher one day.

Going into nursing education is certainly what many of the consortium administrators are hoping their students will do.

At the moment, Oregon is stuck in a Catch-22: While it deals with a nursing shortage, it’s also stuck in a nurse educator shortage, meaning it can’t produce as many new nurses as it needs. Nurse educators also make about $49,000 less per year than nurses do in practice, according to a report by the Oregon Longitudinal Data Collaborative, adding an additional hurdle to recruitment.

The community college consortium is handling the problem by starting small and splitting the load. With each college taking on only two classes or so apiece, they’re largely reshuffling their staff, hiring minimal faculty to handle the additional load.

In the long term, though, Downing suggested the program could help address the nurse educator shortage. Nurses need higher degrees to teach than to work as practicing nurses, and that starts with getting a bachelor’s.

O’Daniels, at least, is aiming to follow that path. She sees the impact of the shortage in nursing educators at Oregon Coast, where she said faculty often seem stressed and stretched thin. Crystal Bowman, the college’s dean of nursing and allied health, acknowledged the school is understaffed.

The experience, O’Daniels said, has inspired her to give back. She knows she wants to work as a practicing nurse for some years, but eventually, she’d like to end up as a faculty member at her alma mater.

“When you have a good instructor or a good clinical instructor, it really helps you be a good nurse,” she said. “I want to give that back and make sure people — not only the students, but the community — can have that type of success later down the road.”

— Aviva Bechky covers politics and education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. They can be reached at abechky@oregonian.com or on X at @avivabechky.

Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.