Understanding the cost of enrollment: A comprehensive review of baccalaureate and graduate nursing program websites

IF 4.1 2区医学 Q1 NURSING

Nursing Outlook Pub Date : 2025-04-19 DOI:10.1016/j.outlook.2025.102403

Nicholas Havey PhD , Jenny Keyt MA , Carrie Byrne MEng , George A. Zangaro PhD, RN, FAAN

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background

Nursing school websites are often prospective students’ first source of information regarding program expectations, tuition, and cost of attendance.

Purpose

Given evidence of the growing complexity of nursing programs and changes to institutional tuition policies and cost-setting practices, this study examined the breadth and depth of baccalaureate and graduate nursing program-specific cost information on institutions’ public-facing websites.

Methods

Through content analysis of website and attachment data from 1,069 colleges and universities representing 1,579 baccalaureate and 1,485 graduate nursing programs, we sought to characterize patterns in the nature and quality of tuition information on nursing programs’ websites to better understand the user experience related to nursing program choice and enrollment.

Discussion

Across the 3,064 programs analyzed, we found that cost information was present for 94.5% of all programs, was comprehensive for 20.2% of all programs, and was up to date for 92.2% of all institutions. Our findings point to intense variation in informational quality across institutions and programs, ranging from language inconsistency, visual coherence, and navigational ease, each challenge stemming from information fragmentation, discontinuity, or absence across pages.

Conclusion

Implications for research and improved institutional practice are discussed.

查看原文本刊更多论文

了解入学费用：对护理学士学位和研究生课程网站的全面审查

护理学校的网站通常是未来学生关于课程期望、学费和出勤费用的第一信息来源。鉴于护理项目的复杂性日益增加，以及院校学费政策和成本设定实践的变化，本研究考察了院校面向公众的网站上护理专业本科和研究生成本信息的广度和深度。方法通过对来自1069所高校的网站和附件数据的内容分析，我们试图表征护理专业网站上学费信息的性质和质量模式，以更好地了解与护理专业选择和入学相关的用户体验。在分析的3064个项目中，我们发现94.5%的项目存在成本信息，20.2%的项目是全面的，92.2%的机构是最新的。我们的研究结果表明，各个机构和项目之间的信息质量存在巨大差异，从语言不一致、视觉一致性和导航便利性，每一项挑战都源于信息碎片化、不连续性或跨页面缺失。结论讨论了研究和改进制度实践的意义。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Nursing Outlook 医学-护理

CiteScore

6.20

自引率

7.00%

发文量

109

审稿时长

25 days

期刊介绍： Nursing Outlook, a bimonthly journal, provides innovative ideas for nursing leaders through peer-reviewed articles and timely reports. Each issue examines current issues and trends in nursing practice, education, and research, offering progressive solutions to the challenges facing the profession. Nursing Outlook is the official journal of the American Academy of Nursing and the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science and supports their mission to serve the public and the nursing profession by advancing health policy and practice through the generation, synthesis, and dissemination of nursing knowledge. The journal is included in MEDLINE, CINAHL and the Journal Citation Reports published by Clarivate Analytics.