How USC Is Building a Nursing Faculty Pipeline for Nurse Educators

Nursing schools reported 1,588 full-time faculty vacancies in 2025-2026. South Carolina is testing a paid model to close that gap.

The University of South Carolina, Clemson University, and the Medical University of South Carolina are expanding a nurse educator fellowship that hires doctoral students as full-time employees during their final two years, funded by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation. Teaching experience and mentorship begin before graduation, shortening the path to a faculty role for future nurse educators.

The Nursing Faculty Pipeline Problem

Vacancy rates are climbing, not shrinking

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing's most recent Special Survey on Vacant Faculty Positions, covering 863 nursing schools with an 80.3% response rate in 2025-2026, identified 1,588 full-time faculty vacancies.¹ That equals a 7.2% national vacancy rate, and the rate rises to 9.6% among schools that reported at least one open position.² Four out of five vacancies (80.9%) required or preferred a doctoral degree, which narrows the pool of candidates who can fill them quickly.¹ Schools also reported needing roughly 150 additional faculty positions beyond current vacancies to meet program goals.¹ No newer national vacancy survey was available as of August 2026, so these figures remain the latest benchmark.

Enrollment caps depend on faculty capacity

The effect is measurable. In 2025, baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs turned away 93,176 qualified applicants, citing the nursing faculty shortage and capacity limits.³ More than 75,000 of those applicants were entry-level BSN candidates.³ Every unfilled faculty line reduces the number of clinical groups and classroom seats a school can offer, which means fewer new nurses enter the workforce even while nurse educator demand stays high. The bottleneck is not interest in nursing education; it is the supply of doctoral-prepared educators ready to teach. That makes investment in future faculty during doctoral training, such as paid teaching fellowships that include mentorship and classroom experience, a direct response to the nursing workforce pipeline problem.

Inside USC's Expanding Nursing Faculty Pipeline

What happens when a faculty-development pilot with eight students is tested as a statewide model?

The University of South Carolina College of Nursing, one of the nurse educator schools in South Carolina, first answered that question in 2022, when its pilot prepared eight doctoral nursing students for careers in nurse education. All eight completed the program, giving the college a proof point that finishing a doctorate and becoming a competent educator can happen at the same time.

Scaling to a statewide cohort

The Expanding Nursing Faculty Pipeline is now moving beyond Columbia. In 2026 the initiative will expand in partnership with Clemson University and the Medical University of South Carolina. Nine doctoral nursing fellows will join the cohort, three at each university, during the final two years of their doctoral programs. The first statewide fellowship cohort is expected to begin in August 2026.

The expansion's math is direct: the three universities aim to train an estimated 300 additional nurses by 2030 by preparing the faculty needed to address the nursing faculty shortage.

What changes for doctoral students

Liam C. Hein, project co-principal investigator and USC College of Nursing associate professor, describes the approach as "helping future faculty develop as educators while still students." That framing shifts the pipeline timeline. Instead of recruiting faculty only after graduation, the program makes teaching an intentional, supported part of doctoral training. The goal is not just more faculty on paper. It is better prepared faculty who already know the classroom rhythms.

Paid Teaching Fellowships: How the Model Works

Most doctoral nursing students wait until after degree completion to gain their first formal teaching experience, often while juggling nursing student tuition costs and clinical work. The University of South Carolina fellowship flips that timeline: fellows are hired as full-time employees during the final two years of their doctoral programs, earning a salary while they complete coursework and research.

Earn While You Learn

Instead of deferring income or taking on extra loans, fellows receive paid employment that offsets the financial burden of the final doctoral years. They step into real teaching roles, then refine those skills with structured mentorship from experienced faculty members. This design reduces the cost barrier that pushes many nurses away from educator pathways.

• Salary: Full-time employee status during the final two doctoral years.
• Teaching: Classroom and clinical instruction guided by experienced faculty mentors.
• Timeline: Paid experience starts before dissertation completion.

A Faculty Identity Before Graduation

The traditional nurse educator career path asks a nurse to become faculty after graduation, often with little teaching preparation. This model treats future educators as developing professionals from day one. Fellows gain classroom and clinical teaching experience while they are still students, building a faculty identity and professional network before they defend their dissertations. By the time they graduate, they have already been paid to teach, mentored, and evaluated, which makes the transition into a faculty role far less abrupt. For many, this early immersion is the difference between staying in academia and returning to clinical practice.

Partnerships That Power the Pipeline

This clinical partnership model is not a single-campus project. It is a coordinated effort among the University of South Carolina, Clemson University, and the Medical University of South Carolina, with each institution hosting three doctoral fellows during the final two years of study. Because fellows are hired as full-time employees, their teaching time lands inside the classrooms, simulation spaces, and clinical teaching placements where nursing students actually train. Those practice settings become supervised teaching labs rather than something newly hired faculty must figure out alone. Placements range from hospital-based clinical instruction to simulation-based teaching, so doctoral students learn to teach in the same environments where new nurses build competence. Dean Jeannette Andrews frames the partnership as more than a recruitment fix: "The partnership reflects a shared vision for nursing education in South Carolina." The shared aim is concrete: help the three universities train an estimated 300 additional nurses by 2030. When faculty preparation is regional rather than siloed, nurse educator workforce planning grows capacity where the statewide need is greatest.

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Nurse Educator Salary and Job Outlook: South Carolina by the Numbers

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 16.8% employment growth for postsecondary nursing instructors and teachers from 2024 to 2034, an increase of about 15,300 jobs. State-level wage figures below are 2024 BLS estimates. Georgia's nursing instructor wage data is not separately reported, so the table highlights South Carolina and neighboring North Carolina.