IOWA CITY - The University of Iowa hopes limiting the number of undergraduate nursing degrees will help ease the country's nursing shortage. At the College of Nursing they say there are two shortages: actual nurses and people to teach and administer nursing classes. The dean says more teachers can create more nurses.

Most hospitals deal with the nursing shortage. To address the problem nursing colleges could admit more students. But the University of Iowa says the number of students is not the problem. Nursing Dean Rita Frantz said, “In 2006-2007, the last year we have data, there were 42,000 qualified applicants for nursing programs that were not admitted because of a faculty shortage."

The College of Nursing wants to decrease the number of undergrads admitted into nursing and increase the number of master's and doctoral students. The idea is to create more faculty and administrators, who will then teach more students. The Vice President of Nursing at Mercy Iowa City supports the idea, but says there are concerns. Cathy Abrams said, “We need to be sure though we always have enough nurses at the bachelor degrees or at the level that want to work at the bedside of the hospital."

The nursing shortage is real at Mercy Iowa City. The hospital is down about 10 nurses. It makes every day a struggle. Abrams said, “Do you decrease the number of beds, do you have longer waits in the emergency room."

The shortage is expected to get worse. At the College of Nursing they estimate needing one million nurses nationwide by 2020. Frantz said, “In order to address the shortage of nurses, we have to address the shortage of faculty."

The State Board of Regents will discuss the university's proposal Tuesday. If approved, it will go into effect immediately. Training students to become faculty will not fix the problem overnight. The average age of professors at the college of nursing is 54. The next decade will be spent replacing faculty instead of adding to them.

Email Steve Nicoles at Steve.Nicoles@kcrg.com