Concord, NH – Thanks to funding approved from the American Rescue Plan Act, the state’s community colleges will expand LPN programs to additional campuses and double enrollment in this critical healthcare field.
This expansion will help to build the state’s LPN workforce to meet critical need in hospitals, long-term care facilities and other healthcare providers impacted by COVID-19 and will also broaden the state’s nursing pipeline. The program also represents a new program-sharing model for the community colleges that will streamline administrative costs to launch and sustain the program.
The community college system debuted its first LPN program in 2020 at River Valley Community College, offering it at Claremont, Keene and Lebanon, and subsequently expanded it to Lakes Region Community College in Laconia and White Mountains Community College’s academic center in Littleton. The new funding enables expansion to community colleges in the central and southern parts of the state, to provide opportunities for aspiring nurses in those regions and meet local needs in the healthcare workforce.
CCSNH’s program is designed to be completed within one year of study, following a January-to-December calendar. It provides immediate entry into the LPN level of nursing, and also can act as an on-ramp for LPN graduates to continue their education and progress to the RN level, thus providing a steady pipeline of LPNs and career ladders to meet the needs that also exist in NH for RN-level nurses.
“We appreciate the vision of the Governor and Legislature, first to invest in CCSNH’s reintroduction of the LPN program through River Valley Community College, and now to support its expansion to other regions of the state by leveraging the system’s talent, infrastructure, and engagement with partners in the communities that we serve. This is a great illustration of the agility and efficiency that CCSNH can bring to bear to strengthen New Hampshire’s workforce, and more importantly, to meet the critical healthcare needs of New Hampshire’s citizens,” said Mark Rubinstein, Chancellor of the Community College System.
