Becoming a nursing professor requires a combination of advanced education, clinical nursing experience, and a deliberate transition into academic life. The exact path depends on the type of teaching role you’re aiming for: a clinical instructor position at a community college has different requirements than a tenure-track professorship at a research university. Either way, the demand is strong. A 2025 survey of 863 nursing schools found 1,588 full-time faculty vacancies nationwide, representing a 7.2% vacancy rate, and a wave of retirements is expected to widen that gap over the next decade.
Degree Requirements by Role
The degree you need depends on where and what you want to teach. At the entry level, clinical instructor and adjunct faculty positions typically require a BSN at minimum, with an MSN or DNP preferred. If you’re teaching in a graduate program, a master’s degree or higher is generally required. Most states also mandate an active, unencumbered RN license.
For tenure-track positions at universities, you’ll need a doctoral degree. An assistant professorship is the entry-level tenure-track role, and it’s designed for PhD graduates, though DNP holders are increasingly eligible depending on the institution. The distinction between these two doctorates matters for your career trajectory, so it’s worth understanding before you commit to a program.
PhD vs. DNP: Choosing the Right Doctorate
The PhD in Nursing is a research degree. It trains you to conduct original nursing research, develop theory, lead research teams, and publish scholarly work. PhD programs typically include mentored teaching experience as part of the curriculum. Graduates commonly land roles like assistant professor, program director, or postdoctoral fellow.
The DNP is a practice degree. It prepares nurses for leadership, administration, and the translation of research into clinical settings. Teaching experience is not a required component of most DNP programs, though some offer optional teaching certificates. DNP graduates more commonly work as nurse practitioners, health care executives, or administrators, though many do teach.
If your goal is a tenure-track position focused on research and scholarship, a PhD is the more direct path. If you want to teach clinical courses while maintaining a practice role, the DNP can work, but be aware of the challenges. DNP faculty on the tenure track often struggle to balance teaching workloads, research and service mandates, and maintaining clinical practice hours required by regulatory agencies. Some institutions have created clinical-track faculty lines specifically for DNP-prepared educators, which remove the research expectations of tenure but may limit advancement.
Clinical Experience You’ll Need
You cannot teach nursing without having practiced it. Most states and accrediting bodies require a minimum of two years of clinical experience as a registered nurse before you can serve as faculty. Maryland’s regulations, for example, specify this two-year minimum for both nurse faculty and clinical nurse faculty. In practice, many hiring committees expect considerably more, particularly for specialty areas like critical care, pediatrics, or psychiatric nursing where depth of experience directly affects teaching quality.
Your clinical background becomes your teaching credential in a way that no degree can replace. Students and program directors value faculty who can draw on real patient scenarios, model clinical reasoning, and bridge the gap between textbook concepts and bedside reality.
Building Teaching Experience Before You Apply
Most nursing programs won’t hire you into a full-time faculty role without some evidence that you can teach. Fortunately, there are several ways to build that experience while still working clinically.
- Precept nursing students. If your hospital partners with a nursing school, volunteering to precept students during their clinical rotations gives you direct, supervised teaching experience.
- Teach adjunct. Many nursing schools hire part-time adjunct faculty to supervise clinical groups or teach a single course. This is the most common entry point into academia. A BSN with clinical expertise can qualify you, though an MSN is preferred.
- Lead staff development. Volunteering for in-service education, competency training, or orientation programs at your workplace demonstrates your ability to design and deliver instruction.
- Guest lecture. If you have specialized clinical expertise, reach out to local nursing programs and offer to present on your topic. It’s a low-commitment way to test whether you enjoy the classroom.
Many hospitals and nursing schools have partnership arrangements that allow graduate-prepared nurses to split time between clinical and teaching roles. These shared positions can be an ideal bridge if you’re not ready to leave practice entirely.
Certified Nurse Educator Credential
The National League for Nursing offers the Certified Nurse Educator (CNE) credential, which signals specialized competence in the teaching role. It’s not required for most positions, but it strengthens your application and is increasingly valued by employers.
To sit for the CNE exam, you need an active nursing license and one of the following: a master’s or doctoral degree in nursing with a major emphasis in nursing education; a graduate nursing degree plus a post-master’s certificate in nursing education; or a graduate nursing degree plus nine or more credit hours of graduate-level education courses. If your graduate degree focused on a clinical specialty rather than education, you can still qualify by documenting at least two years of employment in a nursing program within the past five years.
Tenure Track vs. Clinical Track
University nursing faculty positions generally fall into two categories, and understanding the difference will shape every decision you make along this path.
Tenure-track positions (assistant professor, associate professor, full professor) are evaluated on three pillars: teaching, research, and service. You’re expected to maintain a program of scholarly research, publish regularly, secure grant funding, teach courses, advise students, and serve on institutional committees. Tenure review typically happens around year six or seven. This track favors PhD-prepared faculty and offers the highest job security and salary ceiling once tenure is achieved.
Clinical or non-tenure-track positions focus primarily on teaching and clinical supervision. These roles carry titles like clinical instructor, lecturer, or clinical assistant professor. They typically require less research output and allow you to maintain active clinical practice. The trade-off is less job security (often year-to-year contracts) and a lower salary ceiling.
What Nursing Professors Earn
Salaries vary significantly by institution, rank, and degree. Salary schedules from Rutgers, effective July 2025, offer a useful benchmark for a state university system. On a 12-month contract, an assistant professor with a PhD earns a base of roughly $104,700, while one with a master’s degree starts around $89,900. Associate professors earn about $124,500, and full professors reach approximately $145,400. Distinguished professors top $159,300.
These figures represent base academic salaries at a single institution. Private universities, geographic location, and cost of living adjustments all shift the numbers. It’s worth noting that one of the primary drivers of the faculty shortage is compensation: clinical and private-sector nursing roles often pay more, which pulls potential educators away from teaching.
A Realistic Timeline
If you’re starting from a BSN and clinical practice, here’s a rough sense of the timeline. An MSN takes two to three years, and a doctoral program (PhD or DNP) adds another three to five years on top of that, depending on whether you attend full-time or part-time. Factor in the two or more years of clinical experience required before teaching, and most people are looking at a 7 to 10 year path from BSN to a tenure-track assistant professorship. You can enter adjunct or clinical instructor roles much sooner, often as soon as you have your MSN and a few years of practice experience.
Many nurses build this path incrementally: working clinically while completing graduate school, picking up adjunct teaching along the way, and moving into full-time faculty roles once they finish a doctoral degree. The sequential approach (finish all schooling, then teach) is less common than the layered one.
Why the Timing Is Right
The nursing faculty shortage is a structural problem, not a temporary one. Budget constraints, an aging professoriate, and competition from better-paying clinical roles have all contributed to a pipeline that isn’t producing enough educators. Master’s and doctoral programs in nursing are simply not graduating enough people to fill the gap. For nurses willing to invest in the education and accept the salary trade-off, this translates to strong job prospects and, in many programs, a genuine need for your expertise.