The Michigan State House Education Committee has advanced bills that would allow community colleges to offer four-year Bachelor of Science in nursing degrees.
Michigan is in the middle of a fourth COVID-19 wave with dozens of hospitals in the state at 75-percent capacity or more.
Republican State Representative John Roth said the pandemic has made an already bad situation worse.
“This is now a serious need with COVID and what has happened during these years with COVID and before COVID started there was a nursing shortage now with the burnout rate with COVID It is a need severe need that we need at our community colleges.”
Roth’s wife is a registered nurse. He says similar legislation was discussed more than a decade ago but received pushback from four-year colleges.
It’s unclear when the bills might receive a vote in the House.