SUMMARY: Saint James College offers both Bachelors of Science in Nursing and Masters of Science in Nursing to RN’s through our online Fast Track Program. Here, you’ll be given full credit for all previous college credits as well as CEU’s, no matter how long ago you earned them. Plus, our government charter permits us to grant you up to half-credit for real-life, on-the-job, experience!

This program teaches the administrative, business, and personnel management side of nursing. We cannot teach clinical nursing skills online. This program is for either a Bachelors of Science in Nursing or a Masters of Science in Nursing and is designed for mid or late-career distance learners who need to enhance their management skills or to obtain an advanced degree to satisfy specific career requirements. The typical student in this program will have been an RN for some time years,   will possess a strong undergraduate academic background, and will be seeking to learn the business and management side of nursing. Courses are designed according to individual students’ needs and may include, Nursing Management, Hospital Administration, Interviewing Techniques, Unit Management for the Professional Nurse, The Art of Negotiation, Business Management Basics (from our MBA program), Team Building, Motivating Gifted Employees, Coaching and Counseling Difficult Employees, Liaison With the CEO and the Board, Building Your Own Career Internally, and How To Move Up and Out When It’s Time. .

Each undergraduate and graduate degree candidate's requirements will be tailor-made to incorporate the previous experience that the student brings to the program. Except for students who elect to serve internships or residencies, all coursework involves online study modality.

An M.S.N. degree (Masters of Science in Nursing) is an advanced post-graduate degree that connotes that one has reached the pinnacle of his or her academic life. For nurse managers and administrators today, an MSN is increasingly becoming a professional requirement for those wishing to move into upper management. This is true whether in a government agency, private clinic, or hospital setting.

Greater earnings come with a Bachelors of Science in Nursing, of course, and they are even greater for those holding a Masters of Science in Nursing: Statistically, a nurse with an MSN earns roughly double the amount earned each year by someone with just a bachelors education. (Survey, salary.com.)

B.S.N.’s and M.S.N.’s earn considerably more in today's market...

Online Education is growing incredibly rapidly: Salary.com says: "Online education is widely accepted as being just as valuable as the classroom experience." They add: "The growing popularity of online courses is undeniable, with online enrollment currently growing at a staggering 33% a year. There are more than 3 million students currently involved in distance or online learning according to the Distance Education and Training Council. And in today's increasingly connected world, this number continues to grow, and at a faster rate."

Saint James College is proud to offer a premiere online educational program, and is one of the least expensive degree-granting institutions in the United States (due to our being owned and endowed by an inter-faith spiritual denomination, The Love Church Worldwide).

What's Required for an MSN at Saint James College: 1. 60 credit hours are required for a Masters of Science in Nursing. 2. Possession of a bachelors degree is normally a prerequisite. (NOTE: The College offers certain highly-experienced adult learners the option of obtaining a masters without a bachelors degree provided the student has adequate non-degree college and significant real-life work experience. In this case, you may be eligibile for our "Real Life Experience Fast Track Program."© This consolidates pre-earned undergraduate and graduate credits, combining them with real-life professional experience (explained further, below) 3. A portion of the 60 credit hours required for an MSN degree may include credits from earlier study (or equivalent CEU credits) earned at a previous college or university. Alternatively, this option may be met by "real-life experience" of candidates who have participated in a related field that the faculty recognizes as equivalent to an internship or practicum. For example, a candidate for a M.S.N. in Management could show having previously earned previous college credit hours in a related academic field or had professional management employment in a clinic, physician’s office, Nurse Practitioner’s office or, possibly, running a hospital nursing unit. 5. You May Choose between a Thesis or Other Approved Project a. Dissertation Option:  The College is cognizant of the fact that the vast majority of its student body is comprised of adult learners who may have already made significant professional contributions within their chosen field of expertise. Masters of Science in Nursing candidates may therefore choose a variety of "final project" options. One of these is to research and write a traditional masters thesis. If this option is chosen, the Thesis must be original research or a report outlining topically pertinent information. It must be of publishable quality. Thesis topics and format must be pre-approved. They are required to range between 100 – 200 pages with at least 100 words per page, as determined by the faculty. b. Learning Journal Option: If a mid-career M.S.N. candidate has at least two years "real-life" experience in her or his chosen masters field, the student may substitute a Learning Journal Project instead of writing a dissertation. This journal will be assessed by the faculty or masters committee and must satisfactorily document that the candidate has a full grasp of and is competently conversant with the essentials of the chosen field of study. This journal will become part of the College's permanent archives and must be written in such a manner as to serve as an instructional resource for future students or for professionals working in the candidate’s field of study. c. Internship Option: As an alternative to the Thesis or the Learning Journal option, the M.S.N. candidate may serve a pre-approved fulltime 3-month (or part-time, 6-month) Internshipin a professional or not-for-profit institutional setting consistent with her or his chosen field of study. This could include an MSN candidate serving in a women's health clinic, a hospice, or a drug and alcohol treatment program, acute care hospital, etc. Or, a Masters of Science in Nursing candidate interested in women's issues may be authorized to serve an Internship in a rape intervention program, or a clinic offering psychotherapy oriented toward women. NOTE: Under exceptional circumstances, the faculty may deem that previously-completed service (or service currently in progress) may satisfy Internship requirements. NUMBER OF CREITS EARNED BY A THESIS, LEARNING JOURNAL, OR INTERNSHIP: Twenty units of credit are awarded for an accepted Thesis or an approved substitute Learning Journal Project or Internship. TUITION COST FOR A SAINT JAMES COLLEGE B.S.N.: All tuitions are determined by the amount of previous academic and real-life experience that students bring to the program. Depending on the scope of documented experience in a student's portfolio, tuition may range from $1,500 for a well-prepared candidate to $3,000 for a student who enters the program with little previous graduate credits or experience. Saint James College has very limited scholarship funding available but routinely arranges for convenient payments to be made at zero percent interest. TUITION COST FOR A SAINT JAMES COLLEGE M.S.N.: All tuitions are determined by the amount of previous academic and real-life experience that students bring to the program. Depending on the scope of documented experience in a student's portfolio, tuition may range from $2,500 for a well-prepared candidate to $5,000 for a student who enters the program with little previous graduate credits or experience. Saint James College has very limited scholarship funding available but routinely arranges for convenient payments to be made at zero percent interest.

SAINT JAMES COLLEGE Credit for Real-Life experience details: Based on your Real Life Experience, our government charter permits us to grant you in advance up to 50% of the 60-credit hours required for a Masters of Science in Nursing degree. So, if you have worked in nursing management, clinic business management, administration, women's crisis service management, etc., for some time and have acquired significant hands-on experience … you may be able to obtain your M.S.N. degree at Saint James College by completing fewer academic requirements than those which would be expected of an incoming candidate with no such background. Each student's request for the Real-Life experience waiver is evaluated by The College on a case-by-case basis.

ALL previous college / university credits will be accepted: It is often a fact of life for mid-career adult students that their previous college experience occurred in the in the somewhat distant past, frequently a considerable number of years ago. Adult learners frequently have a great deal of difficulty transferring these fully-legitimate-but-old credits into new educational programs. Unlike most colleges and universities, Saint James College routinely accepts all documented academic credits that you have earned previously at other institutions of higher education. This is true even for credit hours earned years previously. As an example, if your credits were earned ten years ago, most schools require that you re-take large numbers of courses when you enroll in their programs. Naturally, this brings in tidy amounts of extra income for them. But, with Saint James College, we do not use requiring you to re-take classes as a profit center.

How long will it take me to get my Masters of Science in Nursing degree? If you bring only limited pre-existing graduate-level college credit and if your "real-life experience" is limited in scope, it could take from one to two years of self-paced study. However, students with some graduate-level college credits (or CEUs) coupled with a strong background in "real life experience," it is possible for organized and dedicated students complete their studies in months. We are not a diploma mill! You must study and complete courses, or you must have the necessary background for our Fast-Track Program©. But, if you do, and if you invest the appropriate amount of time in our online distance-learning program, you may complete your MSN degree program rapidly. Each student works at a different pace, so it’s up to you how quickly you can complete your studies.

Two caveats: We are accredited by the Association of Accredited Bible Schools. We strictly adhere to our mission of providing world-class education in a conveniently-presented distance learning format. Our courses are academically sound, our faculty and instructors are highly-competent and helpful, and we strive to offer among the lowest tuition rates in North America. Because we are a relatively new college, we are not yet regionally accredited. This is less and less important in today’s job market where employers are hungry for qualified employees and have fewer concerns about regional accreditation than in the past. Our degrees are not regionally accredited by an agency accepted by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, but they are real degrees, legitimate, and awarded by a college that is sponsored by a fully-chartered parent, The Love Church Worldwide inter-faith denomination. Still, it is not the intent of our M.S.N. program to prepare or authorize graduates to go on to achieve state licensing using our degree is the qualifier – as an RN, you are already licensed. Our program is solely designed to provide additional management.

As many as 99% of non-traditional education students surveyed by a government-sponsored study said that they feel their degree meets or exceeds a traditional degree.

The study showed that roughly one-fifth of those who were awarded a non-traditional under-graduate degree went on to obtain a masters or doctorate. 97% of the non-traditional undergrads were accepted by the grad school that they preferred. Three percent reported some difficulties in presenting a non-accredited degree or transcripts from a non-accredited college, or for having obtained real-life experience credits. The bottom line is that the study showed that a full 94 percent reported no difficulty in being admitted to graduate school due to having an unaccredited degree or earning it through non-traditional or online education.

(See Sosdian, Carol P. and Sharp, Laure M., The External Degree as a Credential: Graduates’ Experience in Employment and Further Study, Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.)

The second caveat is that Saint James College degrees must have a "spiritual flavor" to them. Due to being owned by a chartered religious denomination, the government requires that our degrees be awarded with a relationship to a church or spiritual competency. You may sign your name with your credentials, such as Kathy Smith, M.S.N., or Larry Jones, M.S.N., but the government requires that your actual Saint James College diploma must say "Masters of Science in Nursing and Spiritual Services" or, perhaps, "Masters of Science in Nursing and Parish Family Counseling." Because our degrees were designed at the outset to assist priests, ministers, and spiritual workers to increase their competencies and advance their careers, this has been consistent with our mission. It also enables us to offer Masters and other degrees for as much as 95% below the "market" cost in traditional education. Nonetheless, this requirement may not be acceptable to all students. Consider all higher educational degree programs carefully and choose one that matches both your budget and also your professional needs.