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While you can become a reg­is­tered nurse (RN) with an associate’s degree, prac­tic­ing nurs­es who hold a Bachelor’s degree in nurs­ing (BSN) are typ­i­cal­ly giv­en more respon­si­bil­i­ty and high­er salaries. Associate’s degrees require the com­ple­tion of 60 cred­it hours and gen­er­al­ly take two years to com­plete, while Bach­e­lor degrees require the com­ple­tion of 120 cred­it hours and gen­er­al­ly take four years to com­plete. How­ev­er, there are a num­ber of vari­ables that can increase or decrease the total time that it will take to fin­ish your degree. A few vari­ables that can affect the time it will take to com­plete your degree are:

  • Pre­vi­ous cred­its from oth­er insti­tu­tions or majors can trans­fer towards your BSN degree, cut­ting down the total time it will take to com­plete your degree. Cred­its that are from sub­ject areas besides nurs­ing can be trans­ferred, as the com­ple­tion of a Bachelor’s degree requires stu­dents to com­plete cours­es in the human­i­ties as well.
  • Accel­er­at­ed BSN pro­grams allow stu­dents to take con­densed course loads to earn their degree in as lit­tle as 11 to 18 months, depend­ing on the program.
  • Online BSN pro­grams are designed to give stu­dents max­i­mum sched­ule flex­i­bil­i­ty, allow­ing BSN stu­dents to main­tain employ­ment as an RN through­out their stud­ies. Stu­dents can choose to take class­es part-time if their work sched­ule takes up a lot of their time, which will increase the amount of time it takes to earn their degree but will allow stu­dents to bal­ance oth­er oblig­a­tions with their studies.

If you are look­ing for a BSN pro­gram that will allow you max­i­mum sched­ule flex­i­bil­i­ty, you will want to con­sid­er an online BSN degree pro­gram as you will be able to com­plete tests and class­work wher­ev­er and when­ev­er it is most con­ve­nient for you. For ref­er­ence to some of the top options for online BSN pro­grams, check out our list of the 30 Best Online Bach­e­lors of Nurs­ing Pro­grams. Let’s take a clos­er look at Saint Louis Uni­ver­si­ty, which came in at num­ber three on our list, and offers stu­dents a vari­ety of ways to cut down the time it will take to earn their BSN degree.

Saint Louis University

Saint Louis Uni­ver­si­ty (SLU) is a pri­vate research uni­ver­si­ty that was found­ed in 1818, and is locat­ed in St. Louis, Mis­souri. The uni­ver­si­ty offers an online BSN in Nurs­ing that allows stu­dents to indi­vid­u­al­ize their cur­ricu­lum plans, so that they can tai­lor their edu­ca­tion to their pro­fes­sion­al and aca­d­e­m­ic expec­ta­tions. Saint Louis offers stu­dents to trans­fer in cred­its from pre­vi­ous majors or insti­tu­tions, though 30 of the final 36 cred­it hours must be com­plet­ed at SLU. The pro­gram allows stu­dents to work as full-time stu­dents, who take an aver­age of 15 cred­its per semes­ter, or part-time, for stu­dents who want to take less than 12 cred­its per semes­ter. Pass­ing the Nation­al Coun­cil Licen­sure Exam­i­na­tion (NCLEX) will grant stu­dents 38 cred­it hours of nurs­ing course­work, which can great­ly decrease the amount of time it will take to earn your BSN. The total tuition for the 2017–18 school year came out to $42,166, though 96% of stu­dents received some form of finan­cial aid.

Relat­ed:

25 Best Bach­e­lor’s in Nursing

15 Best Online BSN Programs

10 Fastest Online Bach­e­lor’s in Nursing

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Nursing