<p>Living in a good-sized city in the midwest, there are several local community or private, for-profit “colleges” that offer an associate’s in nursing, but only the community college is nationally accredited. The others are not and half the local hospitals won’t even consider an applicant from these schools…something to think about before starting their programs, in addition to their extrememly high fees. All of the major med. and lg. universities offer a 4-yr. BSN program, all of which are very competitive to get into (ie. 3.9 and 4.0’s sometimes don’t get in). In addition, often the programs are laid out where they are one yr. of pre-req’s followed by 3 yrs. officially in the nursing program, and I can say from having a daughter who is a Sr. in nursing that usually the pre-req’s are so many and require such a high GPA that they are done over 3 semesters, not 2, taking a total of 4.5 yrs. for the BSN. Many of the local hospitals are shifting away hiring associate’s in nursing and now taking only BSN.</p>