So, Nursing Is The ‘Surefire Path to Prosperity’? Nurses Call BS | Opinion

It's no secret that the job market is a scary place right now. As someone who has actively been job hunting since November, submitting, on average, 1-2 applications per day without any real luck, I have firsthand knowledge of how disheartening searching for employment can be. 

I'm also the mother of a high school senior, and she is looking to me for direction on what career path she should choose, which is terrifying. I truly don't know how to advise her. What am I noticing, as both of us search for a future path, however, is a hard push back to hands-on, trade-type jobs.

Nursing, of course, falls into that category while also holding the shiny badge of "professional" status.

On April 1, 2026, The Wall Street Journal even dubbed nursing as the "surefire new path to American prosperity." 

On one hand, thanks WSJ. Thanks for highlighting nursing in such a positive light. But on the other hand, let's be real: you can't compare a floor, bedside nurse, with the "nurse" you chose to highlight in the article: a nurse practitioner with a doctoral degree. 

The Differences Between Nurses and NPs

I like the idea of promoting nursing, I really do. But this article gives me pause because calling nursing a "surefire path" to "prosperity" is a tad misleading when the article is actually about a practitioner with several advanced degrees, including a doctoral-level degree, not "just" a nurse. (That's not to put down those of us with plain old nursing licenses, of course, but to make a point that they are very different.) 

That's like calling a history degree a "surefire" way to make money and then highlighting a history professor with a doctoral degree who's landed a tenure track at a high-earning institution. The nurse in the story is not making $120,000 per year because she's a nurse; she's making over six figures because she's a nurse practitioner with a doctoral degree. (Also, side note: is it just me or is $120K not that much for what this woman is doing??)

Being a nurse and being a nurse practitioner, especially at the doctoral level, are two very different things, and it doesn't do anyone any good to pretend that they're the same thing.

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It is true that, for the most part, even a basic nursing degree provides a relatively certain degree of financial stability. And it is true that getting your nursing degree, at any level, can open up more doors and opportunities for you. But it's not necessarily as easy or as common as this article presented to go from an LPN—as the woman profiled in the article started at—to an NP with a doctorate degree. 

First, there are the practicalities: it can be exhausting and challenging to be a working nurse and go back to school.

So the woman in the article had to not only go from working as an LPN and earning her bachelor's, but then continued with a doctoral degree program for an NP. That's not easy to do for a lot of working, especially if they have other responsibilities, like kids or family members to care for.

Then, there's the financial aspect of earning those degrees, which the article seemed to completely gloss over. A Bachelor's degree in nursing alone can cost anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000. Then, getting your NP, let alone at the doctoral level, is expensive. It can also range upwards of over six figures, and with the Trump administration's changes, it's a cost that may not be eligible for federal loans either.

Nurse Erica also pointed out that just having advanced degrees as a nurse doesn't always translate to more money, either. You could earn your BSN or MSN, but if you're a floor nurse, even with additional certification, your pay is not likely to increase in any significant way.

Nursing is Not Factory Work

The article, even bizarrely, made the comparison to nursing as the "new type" of factory work, apparently inferring that it's the sort of mindless, hands-on role anyone could do and make good money at. 

"Factory work used to be Americans’ most reliable ticket to the middle class," the WSJ wrote. "Office jobs offered another dependable route. But as automation, globalized manufacturing, and now artificial intelligence threaten or narrow some of these paths, healthcare jobs have become the surest bet."

The comparison didn't sit well with everyone, and several commenters on the WSJ post pointed out that you can't call nursing a path to prosperity when what you're actually talking about is someone with a doctoral degree who holds a high-level healthcare provider role.

"This isn't just any healthcare job anyone can go get," Annaliese Spalink wrote. "Both the BN and doctorate are HARD work. This woman is a very educated, knowledgeable professional by now. To compare this to factory work, which is important, good, and hopefully rewarding in different ways, is strange. The first takes loads of school and probably debt to obtain, the latter doesn't."

"She’s a nurse practitioner with a doctorate," added Ash Megyese. "That’s not an everyday RN. She also lives in the Midwest in a low cost area. Six figures in corn fields is much different than six figures in a major city area or one of the coasts. $120k isn’t much where we are. What’s her student debt?"

"But this is a doctorate ....?" noted yet another concerned commenter. "I think you might want to reframe your discussion here. This is an extremely hard career path and not everyone will be successful."

My Opinion: There's Still a Lot of Misconceptions About Nursing

In my humble opinion, this article reveals that there are still a lot of misconceptions about nursing. The attitude of this piece, frankly, seems to reveal an author's underlying belief that nursing is "easy" and a rather mindless job that anyone could do and make decent money at.

The profiled woman in the piece, a highly educated healthcare professional with a doctoral degree, is compared to a factory worker, and again, no shade to the factory workers and their killer pensions of the past, but they are just not remotely the same thing. 

One cannot simply compare a job that didn't even require a high school diploma in many circumstances to a professional, demanding role that involves life-or-death decisions and caring for actual human beings.

Well said, Barbara. And I would add that the piece, in general, feels like it misunderstands the many different roles of nursing, nursing providers, and demeans the profession as a whole, almost in a cutesy, "look at this nurse making big girl money…if she can do it, surely anyone can" type of way. 

Those of us who have actually worked as nurses know that it is not a guaranteed path to prosperity, by any means. Yes, it can be a wonderful profession, and yes, it can be relatively stable, but if we are going to present nursing as some sort of golden egg role to future workers, let's at least be honest about what the differences between nurses are.

Nurses are different than nurse practitioners. Both are valid, noble professions, but they are not the same, and if we are going to talk about them as if they are interchangeable, we're doing everyone a disservice. 

We need to be more honest about what nurses actually do and what it costs, personally and professionally, to enter the profession,  especially if we're going to label it as the "path to prosperity." 

🤔 Nurses, what do you think? Is nursing the 'surefire' path to prosperity? Share your experience in the comments below.