The Practical Nursing graduation ceremony was held on Wednesday night at the Baxter Hood Center.

York Tech was recently awarded $620,430 to expand enrollment in both its PN program—20 new slots—and in the second year of its Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) program. Many students who complete the one-year program are qualified to matriculate into the ADN program as second-year students. The capacity for the associate-level program, which trains students for careers as registered nurses, now stands at 88.

It's all good news for area healthcare providers who have been struggling for years to find qualified nurses. In South Carolina, approximately 3,000 qualified students apply to nursing programs each year, but higher education institutions can accommodate only about half that many, according to the South Carolina Hospital Association. With annual nursing job openings in the state currently in the 3,000 range, healthcare providers have been forced to increase incentives, offer lucrative signing bonuses and look beyond state borders—sometimes internationally—to get nurses to sign on, a costly and time-consuming process.

To avert a healthcare crisis, the South Carolina Technical Education College System asked the state legislature to help fund a plan to increase the 16 technical college's capacity to train healthcare workers. The recently awarded non-recurring funds from the surplus lottery dollars was the result of that request.

York Tech was also awarded $323,195 of competitive funding from the state to expand its innovative distributed learning delivery model in its PN curriculum. The pilot program, which started last year, applies new educational tools like podcasts and interactive online conferencing, to remove some of the traditional stumbling blocks of students who are training for nursing jobs.

"We greatly appreciate the efforts of our legislative delegation in support of investing new dollars to train more South Carolinians for high-paying healthcare jobs,” said York Technical College President Dr. Dennis Merrell.

Practical Nursing graduates recognized last night included: