Written by: Allison Sylte

Key takeaways

• This fall, CSU Fort Collins and CSU Pueblo will launch a joint B.S/M.S. degree in nursing, the first-ever collaborative academic program between two campuses in the CSU System.

• Pre-nursing students at the Fort Collins campus will be able to earn both their undergrad degree and a master’s in nursing in five years and join a field that is seeing a shortfall of thousands of registered nurses in Colorado.

• After working as registered nurses for two years or more, their master’s degree will qualify them to teach at a nursing school, where they will help develop future nurses and continue to combat the workforce shortage in this vital profession.

The Colorado State University System is set to launch a first-of-its-kind program that will combine the resources of its Fort Collins and Pueblo campuses to help address a shortfall of thousands of registered nurses in Colorado.  

While CSU Pueblo’s accredited School of Nursing has long offered multiple nursing degrees, the System’s flagship campus 200 miles north in Fort Collins has not offered a direct pathway into this highly sought-after profession. That will change starting in fall 2026 thanks to a newly approved program allowing students to receive an accelerated five-year Master of Science in nursing leadership from CSU Pueblo while completing their coursework in Fort Collins.  

“This joint B.S./M.S. degree marks a groundbreaking achievement for the CSU System,” said Roze Hentschell, chief academic officer for all CSU campuses. “As the first collaborative academic program between two of our campuses, it reflects our shared commitment to innovation, workforce development and student-centered solutions. By uniting institutional strengths, we are creating a seamless, affordable and high-quality pathway for our students to receive the training to meet critical health care needs in northern Colorado and beyond.” 

CSU Fort Collins is already attracting interested students to new pre-nursing concentrations in three existing undergraduate majors. Starting this fall, these pre-nursing students majoring in health and exercise science, nutrition science, and human development and family studies will complete prerequisites for accelerated nursing programs. In their second year, they will have the opportunity to apply for the 3+2 Direct Entry Nursing Program offered by CSU Pueblo’s School of Nursing in Fort Collins. Up to 40 students per year will ultimately be selected for the competitive master’s program, and after graduation, will take an exam to become licensed registered nurses and begin working directly with patients in a variety of health care settings.   

After working as registered nurses for two years or more, their master’s degree will qualify them to teach at a nursing school, where they will help develop future nurses and continue to combat the workforce shortage in this vital profession.  

The 3+2 program earned approval from Colorado’s State Board of Nursing in October, making it the only program of its kind in the state. CSU Pueblo holds national accreditation from the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing.  

Housed on the fourth floor of the CSU Health and Medical Center, the 3+2 program will include a curriculum with training in resilience and self-care – both critical for combating burnout, an issue that contributed to the loss of an estimated 100,000 nurses in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The coursework will also incorporate specialized leadership skills training to include patient advocacy and education in health inequities and approaches for working with rural and marginalized populations. 

“As a land-grant university, it is our responsibility and privilege to work with communities to solve workforce shortages,” said Lise Youngblade, CSU’s interim provost and executive vice president who has served as dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences since 2019. “We are pleased to be filling a gap, and to do so with an innovative collaboration between two institutions within the CSU System that leverages our unique strengths to solve an important problem.” 

Kristine Morris, dean of the School of Nursing at CSU Pueblo, said hospitals throughout the country – particularly in Denver and Colorado Springs – are preferentially hiring nurses with master’s degrees for leadership roles. 

She said the 3+2 program will allow graduates to move more quickly into leadership roles in health care systems and position them to later train as nurse practitioners. In addition, increasing the number of graduates qualified to teach nursing will help expand the capacity of prelicensure nursing programs, which turned away 78,200 qualified applicants for lack of nursing faculty last year alone, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.  

“The exciting part for us in Pueblo is extending the reach of developing nurses on the Front Range beyond southern Colorado,” Morris said. “By launching this in Fort Collins, we’re giving students a unique opportunity for multidisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration with other health care professionals and scientists.” 

Susan Belport, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, will serve as the program director for nursing in Fort Collins. Part of her role will involve engaging partners such as UCHealth to bolster the program’s visibility and provide students with opportunities to apply their skills in real-world settings. 

With financial support secured from the H.A and Mary K. Chapman Foundation, funds and equipment pledged by UCHealth, and $1.5 million in directed federal spending, the program is off to a strong start. Additional fundraising is underway. Donors can support nursing student success with gifts to the Nurturing Future Nurses Scholarship. Those wishing to support facility renovations to optimize the collaborative learning environment for future interprofessional education can give to the CSU Nursing Program Fund.  

“The community has been so welcoming and supportive of bringing a nursing program to CSU,” Belport said. “I’ve been very grateful for the support throughout the process of bringing this program to life and can’t wait to see how it evolves.”