It’s time to pay nursing students for clinicals

Picture this: You’re a nursing student who just spent 12 hours at the hospital. You’ve administered medications, helped with patient care, charted vital signs and now you’re dragging yourself home without having been paid. Your friends in business, finance and engineering are heading back from their summer internships (paid, of course), talking about how they’re using their extra cash to pay for Spring Break vacations or fun weekends on the town. Meanwhile, you’re delivering real health care in exchange for nothing more than “experience.”

That’s the reality for nursing students. Clinicals are part of the University of Michigan School of Nursing’s graduation requirement and, while they are primarily educational, they center on providing real patient care — work that, in the real world, would be paid. The Nursing School should either compensate students, decrease tuition or provide a stipend to support student nurses. 

Undergraduate students at the Nursing School work anywhere from 10 to 36 clinical hours per week. As a nursing student myself, we receive far fewer credit hours than we actually work. Three to five credit hours are awarded for 10-12 hour shifts we work — not to mention the amount of simulation lab hours, classwork and reflections that we complete outside of clinical classes. We also have to pay for our own transportation, parking and supplies at each different clinical placement. Additionally, some nursing students, like students of all disciplines, work a part-time job due to the high costs of student-living. 

Paid patient care technician roles at local hospitals are open to students who have previously completed some introductory nursing prerequisites, as classroom and clinical knowledge tie into the position. Prospective employees who browse these job postings may notice that a significant number of student nurses’ responsibilities — like taking blood pressures, charting intake and output, and responding to call bells — align with those of patient care technicians and nurse aides at the University Hospital. It’s unreasonable that nursing students are required to handle the same responsibilities as patient care technicians, yet are not compensated for their essential patient care.

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Nursing junior Gina Kim discussed her challenges associated with her area of study.

“As both a patient care technician and a student nurse, I find that many of my responsibilities overlap,” Kim said. “It’s frustrating to be doing almost the same thing and get paid for one and not the other. I’m losing over $100 every clinical day since that’s what I would be making if I were paid. That’s a lot every week that I could be saving for rent and groceries instead.” 

While some may argue that students shouldn’t be paid because they aren’t yet licensed, it’s worth considering that students like Kim are already paid for similar work in their hospital jobs. Given this, there’s no clear reason why they shouldn’t be paid for their work as students. 

With just under 100,000 nursing students across the nation, it may be daunting to even think about subsidizing the costs of each student as if they were a student employee. Nonetheless, other institutions have figured this out with different financial strategies. In the past year, Australia successfully mandated that not only student nurses, but also student teachers, midwives and social workers, must be paid $320 a week to ensure student wellbeing, starting in July 2025. 

Some American universities have started to solve this issue as well: Mercy College of Ohio, just an hour away from the University of Michigan, successfully implemented a paid student program this past January in collaboration with its hospital counterpart, Mercy Health. Although this specific program only sponsors seven students in exchange for future employment, it is nonetheless a step towards paid clinicals — or at least clinicals with a stipend — for more students across the nation. 

The reality is that nursing students have enough on their plates. Between getting up to those 1,000 required clinical hours, studying for exams and possibly holding down a part-time job, we’re juggling a lot. We can’t just pick up a shift at a local coffee shop — our classes can start bright and early at 6:30 a.m. and go until 4:30 p.m. Nursing school demands time, focus and an immense compassion for the people we care for, and it demands these things each and every day. 

If nursing students were paid a stipend or even given a tuition discount, it would ease the financial burden that many of us feel. We could stress less about making rent or financing groceries and focus more on becoming better nurses. Reducing the financial strain would also have a significant impact on nursing students’ mental and physical health. Even though it’s important to keep U-M funding within the hospital system to maintain quality of care, even a little financial support might keep students motivated, and more importantly, encourage more people to consider the profession. And, let’s be real — with health care facing one of the biggest workforce crises in history, we should be doing everything we can to support and retain future nurses. 

Nursing students aren’t expecting a fortune; we just want some recognition for the work we’re doing and the impact we’re making on patient care. Compensation could come in many forms, whether it’s an hourly wage, a tuition cut or a stipend to cover basic living expenses. Something as simple as a small financial boost could go a long way toward making nursing school more accessible and less stressful. 

Colleges like the University of Michigan have the opportunity to set a new standard. Imagine being able to say that our nursing program not only prepares students for the real world, but also values their work enough to pay them. It’s a win-win situation: Students get the support they need and the school becomes a leader in addressing the nursing shortage in a real, tangible way. 

Next time you hear someone say that nursing students should be satisfied with only the experience clinicals give them, remind them that experience is great, but you can’t pay rent with it. The University must start valuing nursing students for the critical role they play and work toward making nursing school more accessible with paid clinicals. 

Leah Huang is an Opinion Columnist writing about the challenges of being a pre-health student in her column “Vital Signs.” She can be reached at leahuang@umich.edu.

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