A for-profit nursing school is proposing to open a campus in Milwaukee, and existing nursing school administrators and community activists are campaigning to block the plan.
The Arizona College of Nursing (AZCN) says the proposal will help alleviate the nursing shortage in southeastern Wisconsin.
“We have a long history of providing high-quality educational opportunities for those looking to become nurses. Our first-time pass rate is in line with the national and Wisconsin averages, and over the past year, [nurses] “The licensing exam is a qualifying exam for admission to a state university,” AZCN Vice President Tamara Poole said during a Milwaukee City Council Urban Planning Committee hearing earlier this month.
But a coalition of groups has publicly urged officials to block the for-profit colleges, accusing them of predatory practices.
“The existence of facilities like this threatens to lower the standard of nursing education and undermine the quality of care future nurses provide to our community. Milwaukee needs facilities that encourage and empower its residents, not facilities that put their futures at risk,” said Quinton Cotton of MKE Black Grassroots Network for Health Equity at the same June 4 zoning meeting.
Critics are trying to block technical zoning changes that city officials say are necessary for the university to occupy the buildings in which it plans to operate.
Despite the opposition, the university’s plans moved forward as the Milwaukee City Council approved the zoning change on Tuesday. Several council members who voted in favor of the change said they agreed with the criticism of for-profit higher education but took seriously the threat of a lawsuit if the city vetoed the changes.
Shortage of medical personnel
The school’s push into the Wisconsin market comes amid a national shortage of health care workers, and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers created a task force earlier this year to look at ways to boost the number of people entering nursing and other health professions.
It also follows a series of for-profit colleges that have entered the Milwaukee market that critics say are not living up to their promises to students. The most notable is Everest University.closed in Milwaukee after three years in 2013, leaving countless students in debt and without the degrees they hoped to earn.
For-profit colleges “flooded Milwaukee during the Great Recession,” Michael Rosen, a former economics professor at Milwaukee Area Technical College, a union leader and one of the organizers of the protests, told the Wisconsin Examiner. “These organizations prey on the hopes of poor people.”
The coalition opposing the nursing school includes many health care groups. “For-profit colleges like Arizona College of Nursing have a history of targeting Black and Latino students and veterans with little or no experience in higher education, falsely promising them high-paying jobs, job placement, transferable credits and affordable tuition,” one college said. Plea It was distributed online by coalition member Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Healthcare Professionals.
The petition cites studies showing that students at for-profit schools “borrow more, default at higher rates, and are less likely to be employed” than their peers at comparable non-profit schools.
A group of existing nursing training programs, including MATC and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, sent a letter to City Council members in March urging them to oppose the school.
“Current nursing and health science educators have sufficient capacity to produce more nursing and health-related graduates, so no additional capacity is needed,” the letter states. “The limiting factor is the availability of staffing to provide sufficient clinical placements in the region.”
Arizona College of Nursing Consent Decree The Arizona Board of Nursing issued the order based on 14 complaints filed with the board, which will remain in effect until 2025.
Among the complaints listed in the agreement were “failure to follow program policies and standards and frequent changes to programs and courses without adequate notice to students.” [and] According to the agreement, there are “insufficient clinical faculty.”
20 campuses in 13 states
University leaders have defended the school’s performance: “Arizona college graduates perform at or above the national average and better than the Wisconsin average,” CEO Nick Mansour said at a zoning board hearing.
The school was founded in 1991 as a private pharmacy training school, according to its website. In 1996, it became part of education services company EduVision and was renamed Arizona College of Applied Health Sciences. The school was renamed the University of Arizona in 2012 and operates two campuses in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
(The for-profit university is not affiliated with the University of Arizona or Arizona State University, both of which are public universities.)
The University of Arizona opened the Arizona College of Nursing in 2013, which offers a three-year bachelor’s degree in nursing. The nursing college currently has 20 campuses in 13 states.
The Wisconsin Board of Nursing has given initial approval for the school to expand statewide in late 2022.
Rosen then filed a complaint with the nursing board, based on the school’s records, including the Arizona consent decree. She said in an interview that she was told the board had no basis to take action because the school had not harmed anyone in Wisconsin and had not violated any Wisconsin laws.
University Development permission was obtained The company signed a 10-year lease in September 2023 for 25,000 square feet of space in an office building on Milwaukee’s west end.
When the building was first developed under the city’s comprehensive plan more than 20 years ago, uses approved included office, retail, business services and a “tutoring school” (a non-degree-granting vocational school), city Planning Administrator Sam Leichtling told the Zoning Board at its June 4 meeting.
As the list did not include a degree-granting university, the planning department directed that “minor amendments be made to the detailed development plan”, which would then need to be approved by council.
Opposition coalition campaign
Opponents of the school organized to block the change. In February, the city’s Planning Commission Recommend rejecting the change Criticism of the university and for-profit universities in general flooded in.
The university A web page to gather public supportThe page contains an electronic message that visitors can enter their name and email address to share with public officials.
Sample text from the message concludes, “We have an opportunity now to address the nursing shortage. We ask that you work with AZCN to further support nursing education opportunities in Milwaukee to meet Wisconsin’s healthcare needs.”
The City Council’s zoning committee postponed action on the zoning changes in March. Council members said in a subsequent closed-door meeting that they had been advised that the for-profit college was likely to sue if the changes were rejected.
At the committee’s June 4 meeting, which included testimony from university officials and advocates as well as opponents of the university, the committee voted 4-1 to approve the changes.
On Tuesday, the City Council voted to accept the committee’s recommendations, but many council members voiced opposition to the plan.
“We have individuals paying $70,000 to $80,000 to get a piece of paper, sometimes without even getting credit,” said City Councilman Mark Chambers Jr., whose district covers the city’s northwestern edge. “We have universities in the city setting up here, coming into the city and taking money from our residents. Plain and simple.”
Councilwoman Charlene Moore, whose district includes the proposed University of Arizona site, said during Tuesday’s City Council vote that while she dislikes for-profit universities, the decision was focused on how the land could be used appropriately, not whether any particular company that would qualify had City Council approval.
“If it’s a university we like, we’ll vote for it. If it’s something we don’t like, we’ll vote against it. I look at precedent to be fair,” Moore said.
Eastside Councilman Jonathan Brostoff agreed. “The criteria under which we’re allowed to consider this small change are quite narrow, so it’s a pretty formulaic situation, legally speaking,” Brostoff said. “But that in no way undoes the sentiments previously shared by critics of the school,” he added.
Rosen said opponents knew they wouldn’t be able to block the zoning change before Tuesday’s City Council vote, but critics have no plans to give up and are considering different strategies to block the school construction.
“Obviously there were elected officials who were unhappy with this and they felt they were being forced to make some very tough choices. [in] “Approving zoning changes that allow the predatory institutions that they permit,” Rosen said.
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