Saint Mary's College Doubles Nursing Program Capacity With New State Grant

Saint Mary's College, the women's liberal arts college in Notre Dame, is doubling the capacity of its nursing program after receiving a new state grant aimed specifically at addressing chronic healthcare staffing shortages in the South Bend region.

The grant will fund additional nursing faculty positions, new clinical simulation equipment, and scholarships for students from northern Indiana communities where the college has traditionally drawn much of its student body. College officials said the program has consistently rejected qualified applicants in recent years due to limited faculty and clinical placement capacity rather than lack of student interest.

"We have more students who want to become nurses than we've ever had, and until now we simply couldn't accept all of them," said the dean of Saint Mary's nursing program. "This funding lets us stop turning away students who are fully capable of doing this work."

Saint Mary's has partnered with Beacon Health System in South Bend to expand available clinical rotation slots, a frequent bottleneck for nursing programs nationally. College officials said the expanded program is expected to graduate its first larger cohort within three years, roughly doubling annual nursing graduates.

Regional health officials have welcomed the expansion as a direct response to nursing shortages at South Bend-area hospitals, several of which have relied heavily on traveling nurse contracts in recent years to fill staffing gaps. Saint Mary's said its nursing graduates disproportionately remain in northern Indiana to work compared with graduates of programs outside the region.