Bachelor’s Degree vs Associate’s Degree: What’s Best For Nurses?

Reg­is­tered Nurs­es (RNs) are required to com­plete the min­i­mum of an Asso­ciates of Nurs­ing degree (ASN) or a Nurs­ing Diplo­ma pro­gram in order to qual­i­fy to take the NCLEX-RN exam, which is required to become a licensed RN in the Unit­ed States and Cana­da. While an ASN will allow grad­u­ates to become ful­ly employed RNs, most RNs are encour­aged to earn their Bachelor’s of Nurs­ing degree (BSN) which is why many col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties offer RN-BSN degree pro­grams. RN-BSN degree pro­grams are designed to give prac­tic­ing RNs the sched­ule flex­i­bil­i­ty to main­tain their cur­rent employ­ment while com­plet­ing class­work for their BSN on their own time. The online for­mat is espe­cial­ly help­ful for nurs­es who work night­time shifts or irreg­u­lar hours, as they would not be able to attend class­es on cam­pus. We’ve dug into some of the top nurs­ing pro­grams in our 30 Best Online Bach­e­lors of Nurs­ing Pro­grams.

Con­sid­er the ben­e­fits of earn­ing your BSN instead of the min­i­mum ASN:

• Increased med­ical skills beyond the basics of clin­i­cal care, includ­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion, crit­i­cal think­ing and lead­er­ship skills
• The Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of the Col­leges of Nurs­ing has con­duct­ed research that indi­cates that nurs­es with BSNs offer bet­ter patient care than nurs­es with their ASN, includ­ing low­er mor­tal­i­ty rates and more accu­rate diag­no­sis abilities
• BSN hold­ers are eli­gi­ble for more nurs­ing posi­tions than ASN hold­ers, includ­ing posi­tions as a Nurse Case Man­ag­er, Research Nurse, or Legal Con­sul­tan­cy Nurse
• BSN hold­ers can expect to earn a high­er salary and have more job secu­ri­ty, as hos­pi­tals and oth­er med­ical facil­i­ties are increas­ing­ly empha­siz­ing BSN candidates

Whether you are an under­grad­u­ate look­ing to major in nurs­ing, or an RN who wants to earn their BSN, there are a wide vari­ety of great nurs­ing pro­grams for you to choose from. For ref­er­ence to some of the top options for BSN degree pro­grams, check out our list of the 30 Best Online Bach­e­lors of Nurs­ing Pro­grams. Let’s take a clos­er look at the BSN options that are offered by Saint Xavier Uni­ver­si­ty, which came in at num­ber 5 in our ranking.

Saint Xavier University

Saint Xavier Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate uni­ver­si­ty that was estab­lished in 1846, and is locat­ed in Chica­go, Illi­nois. The university’s School of Nurs­ing and Health Sci­ences offers a vari­ety of BSN options, which typ­i­cal­ly require the com­ple­tion of 55 cred­its of nurs­ing cred­its among the 120 cred­its that are required to earn a bachelor’s degree. In addi­tion to the tra­di­tion­al on-cam­pus BSN, under­grad­u­ate nurs­ing stu­dents at Saint Xavier can enroll in the accel­er­at­ed BSN pro­gram that takes only 15 months to com­plete. Licensed Prac­ti­cal Nurs­es (LPNs) and RNs can earn their BSN in a reduced time frame. The RN to BSN is offered in an online for­mat to allow prac­tic­ing nurs­es max­i­mum sched­ule flex­i­bil­i­ty, as class­es are 100% online, sched­uled in sev­en-week blocks, and are com­plet­ed one at a time, with two cours­es offered per semes­ter. Tuition for the 2017–18 school year came out to $33,380, which is a good deal for a BSN.

Relat­ed:

25 Best Bach­e­lor’s in Nursing

15 Best Online BSN Programs

10 Fastest Online RN to BSN Programs

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Nursing