Working as a nurse is an incredibly demanding yet undeniably rewarding job. There are many different degrees that you can get to become a nurse, and all of them are associated with different salaries and opportunities for advancement.
Becoming an Registered Nurse is certainly not the lowest position that you can take, but it is one of the easiest to acquire as it takes a limited amount of schooling and pays a decent amount of money. However, you will be limited by how far you can advance in your career by staying an RN. Many people look at getting their Bachelor of Science in Nursing after working as an RN, as it is the next logical step, but a lot of people wonder if it is really worth it.
Weighing Your Options
Nobody has ever been able to legitimately make the argument that more education is a bad thing… except when it comes to finances. There’s no doubt about it- college is not cheap, and continuing your education to get a BSN will put you further into debt, not to mention suck up a lot of your free time. In addition, the salary raise that you get between RN and BSN isn’t really all that huge. In most hospitals, you will find yourself making less than a dollar more per hour, and when you compare that to the money that you spent on getting the BSN, you are going to have to work a lot in order to balance those numbers out.
A BSN is a Long Term Investment
With that being said, you should not be getting your BSN for a quick salary raise. Almost everyone who has made the decision agrees that it is the information that you learn in the BSN classes that really provides you with the most benefits. In addition, having a BSN will allow you to climb the ranks in your hospital much faster, giving you access to positions that would be unreachable as an RN.
Getting a BSN is an Individual Decision
If you can afford to go further into student loan debt, or even pay for most of the schooling out of pocket, and you can afford to spend all of your non working hours studying for your BSN classes, then going for your BSN may be a wise idea. It may make life a little tougher now, but in the future you will be glad that you made the decision. However, if money is tight right now and you simply can’t afford to spend any more time on school because of other more pressing matters, you might want to consider holding off on your BSN for the time being. As previously mentioned, though, more education is hardly ever a bad thing, so try and get yourself into a position where you can afford to further your education and then take the plunge.
