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State House Education Committee advances bills that allows community colleges to offer four-year nursing degrees

Nurses work at a COVID-19 testing day for students and school faculty at Brandeis Elementary School on in Louisville, Ky.
Jon Cherry
/
Getty Images
Nurses work at a COVID-19 testing day for students and school faculty at Brandeis Elementary School on in Louisville, Ky.

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.