Greater Cincinnati has six open healthcare jobs competing for every healthcare graduate, and Ohio recorded nearly 50,000 healthcare vacancies per month last year, according to the Covista Care Capacity Monitor. Nationally, 76% of clinicians say staffing shortages are already compromising their ability to deliver high-quality care, the same report found — a signal that the gap isn't just a hiring headache, but a patient-care problem.

The shortage has been years in the making, and it isn't unique to Cincinnati. Nursing schools nationally rejected nearly 92,000 qualified applicants in 2021 alone — not for lack of interest, but for lack of faculty, clinical placement sites and classroom space, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

Layer onto that an aging nursing workforce: more than 1 million registered nurses are projected to retire nationally by 2030, alongside sustained burnout and attrition tied to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The result, locally, is a vacancy rate that hasn't let up. The Health Collaborative, which surveys seven local hospital systems including TriHealth, UC Health and Cincinnati Children's, has tracked the region's RN vacancy rate climbing since 2016. Statewide, nearly 15% of nursing roles go unfilled, according to Jack Miner, vice provost for enrollment management at the University of Cincinnati, in a June interview.

For anyone weighing a career change into nursing, that math is starting to work in their favor — and so is the admissions process. Chamberlain University's new campus at the Kenwood Collection in Sycamore Township, opening Monday, Aug. 31, is built around removing the barriers that have kept the nursing pipeline narrow: no application fee, no prerequisite courses, evening and weekend scheduling, and a defined three-year path to a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. The campus at 5905 E. Galbraith Road sits less than 10 minutes from Hyde Park and Oakley.

"In our region, where many programs are already at or near capacity, Chamberlain's program offers a three-year BSN pathway to graduate practice-ready nurses, with state-of-the-art simulation labs, and flexible scheduling for working adults and career changers," Priya Shastri, executive director of the Cincinnati campus, said in a June 22 press release.

That pitch is aimed squarely at working adults: the program pairs clinical rotations at local health system partners with a hybrid of in-person and online coursework, rather than requiring students to give up a job to start prerequisite classes first. The first cohort of students can also apply for a Founders' Grant of up to $15,000 toward tuition — a discount worth weighing against the program's full sticker price.

What it costs

Chamberlain is a private, for-profit institution owned by Covista, formerly DeVry Education Group. Full BSN tuition runs approximately $675 per credit over 122 credits, totaling roughly $82,350 before financial aid or the Founders' Grant — which would bring a first-cohort student's cost closer to $67,350. Weighed against that: Cincinnati-area registered nurses earn on average somewhere in the $70,000-to-$97,000-a-year range across salary-tracking sites, with new graduates typically starting closer to $65,000 to $80,000. In a market with six open jobs for every graduate, the bigger financial risk for a new nurse may not be finding work — it's whether the degree pays for itself fast enough, a calculation every prospective student will have to run for themselves.

On outcomes, Chamberlain's 2025 national average NCLEX first-time pass rate — the licensing exam every nursing graduate must pass to practice — was 79.75%, below the national BSN average, which runs in the mid-to-high 80s at many state-accredited programs. The program does hold CCNE accreditation, the same credential carried by UC's nursing school, meaning its degree is recognized by employers and other institutions even if its licensing outcomes trail some peers.

Not the only new option

Chamberlain isn't alone in trying to widen the pipeline. UC grew its first-year nursing cohort from 220 to 300 students for fall 2026, and Christ College of Nursing launched a new three-year program for working adults earlier this year. Together, the moves suggest Greater Cincinnati's nursing schools are treating the shortage less as a temporary spike and more as a structural gap they need to build around — with Chamberlain betting that lowering the cost of entry, even if not the cost of the degree itself, is the fastest way to get more nurses into local hospitals.

Applications for Chamberlain's Cincinnati campus are open now at chamberlain.edu/cincinnati. Classes begin Monday, Aug. 31.