Texas is facing a shortage of 71,000 nurses by 2020 as demand continues to outpace supply, the Texas Department of State Health Services says. Tens of thousands of qualified applicants have been turned away from nursing schools for at least five years because there aren't enough teachers to conduct classes or enough clinical sites where students can get hands-on experience. Across the country, experts predict a shortage of more than 260,000 nurses by 2025. If the shortage is not addressed, the lack of trained caregivers threatens to flat-line the government's health care overhaul law, of which many provisions, such as widespread coverage of the uninsured, start in 2014.
