Nursing pay & demand

Question:

I've recently hear there is a major shortage of nurses and that their salary is significantly higher than what it was about 5 years ago. Five years ago, I dropped out of RT school and fell back on my programming skills simply because I was pretty disappointed about what an RT or RN made back then (45k range in Southern Oregon). So sick of being a poor student, I took a programming job paying 1.5 times that salary but am starting to have 2nd thoughts about my career. My friend told me nurses are in such high demand now, that they are negotiating 65k+/year offers (Las Vegas) with nice sign-on bonuses. Is this accurate? If it is accurate, does anyone believe this will still be the case in 2 or 3 years (how long it would take for me to finish my schooling)?

Answer:

Five years ago, dropped out of RT school and fell back on my programming skills simply because I was pretty disappointed about what an RT or RN made back then (45k range in Southern Oregon).
$45,000 a year five years ago?! I make $46,000 a year now!
(Five years ago I made $34,000. Then I was subjected to a pay cut to preserve my job. Then my job was eliminated. Final total = $0. Then my new replacement job was cut back, and then eliminated. New total = less than zero.)

So sick of being a poor student, I took a programming job paying 1.5 times that salary but am starting to have 2nd thoughts about my career. My friend told me nurses are in such high demand
now, that they are negotiating 65k+/year offers (Las Vegas) with nice sign-on bonuses. Is this accurate? If it is accurate, does anyone believe this will still be the case in 2 or 3 years (how long it would take for me to finish my schooling)?

I would take 65K/annum salaries and nice sign on bonuses with a cellar of salt if I were you. Who knows what kind of deal with he devil you would have to make to get these.

I've been in nursing for twenty years, through cycles of nursing booms and busts, and traditional staff jobs, promising new jobs and multiple cut backs and eliminations and restorations. I am finally making twice the money I made when I started in the Eighties. My income hasn't been affected much, but my job security sure has been.
New grads up here in never never land (central Wisconsin) start out at about $17 an hour. You work rotating shifts (which means usually 2 of the 3 shifts or can be all 3 shifts), also every other weekend and holiday (this is hospital nursing btw). The only plus to getting a job as a new grad is the facility you are applying at probably just canned a bunch of old nurses on the high end of the pay scale to hire in new grads at the low end of the scale. NO job security once you get to the top of your pay scale. NO time you can consider your own as they call you multiple times a day on your day off to guilt you into coming in to work. Mandatory over time when staffing is short (which happens to be every single shift).
Whenever I hear about someone thinking about going into nursing I try to persuade them to go into anything else. YES, there are good points to nursing, but the negatives outweigh the good. I retired at 42.