Community college nursing programs from Stockton to Merced have expanded, and California State University, Stanislaus, established a new program last fall.

But will that put a dent in the nursing shortage in the San Joaquin Valley?

Program directors doubt it.

"It does not seem to be affecting the shortage," said Bonnie Costello, director of the Modesto Junior College nursing program. "The hospitals have travelers (or temporary nurses), and they are doing foreign nurse recruitment because they are desperate. I don't see our numbers making much of a dent."

In the past five years, MJC has more than tripled enrollment in its two-year program. Sixty students are admitted to the program each fall and 50 each spring. Ten students watch lectures on television screens in a classroom at Columbia College, MJC's sister college in the Yosemite Community College District.

In December, the Yosemite district program produced 55 graduates, its biggest class since the early 1990s. Before graduation, the students had lined up jobs at Memorial Medical Center and Doctors Medical Center in Modesto and Emanuel Medical Center in Turlock.

Last fall, Merced College started enrolling students every semester in the college's two-year nursing program instead of once a year, doubling the enrollment. The new system aims to turn out 48 graduates a year starting in 2004.

Merced College funded the expansion through Gov. Davis' nursing work force initiative, plus a partnership with the two Merced hospitals and Merced County's Work Force Investment Board.

Mercy Medical Center Merced's Dominican and Community campuses provide veteran nurses to serve as faculty and clinical assistants. The nurses are hospital employees but spend their days teaching.

"I suppose if every graduate stayed here in Merced for the next 10 years, it would affect the shortage," said Penelope Sawyer, chairwoman of Merced College's Allied Health Division and director of vocational nursing program.

"The hospitals are constantly hiring. They are always recruiting. We get calls all the time."

The health care industry had too many nurses in the early 1990s, prompting some to enter other fields and causing college programs to cut back. The recent shortage hit in 1998 and is approaching a crisis, health experts say.

California has vied with Nevada for having the lowest nurse-to-population ratio in the nation. California's ratio is 566 nurses per 100,000 people. Although numbers were not available, area nursing program directors said the shortage is worse in the Central Valley.

MJC, Merced College and San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton have ramped up their programs to turn out more registered nurses. In September, Stanislaus State began a four-year program with 30 students; the first class is scheduled to graduate in 2005.

The students take prerequisite classes their freshman years and enter the programs as sophomores. People also can attend Stanislaus State to upgrade from associate's to bachelor's nursing degree. But most of those students are already employed.

With the state mired in financial trouble, Stanislaus State is looking to the federal Nurse Reinvestment Act for money to expand, said Nancy Clark, chairwoman of the nursing department.

Congress has yet to appropriate money for the act and no decision to expand the Stanislaus State program will be made this year.

"It's a crisis," Clark said of the nursing shortage. "There is definitely a motivation to expand our program; we just need the resources to do it."

Plenty of applicants are waiting to enter college nursing programs in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. Officials said it is difficult to expand the programs because of space limitations and a shortage of resources.

"These are expensive programs to run," said Bill Scroggins, MJC's vice president of instruction, noting that it costs $24,000 per student.

"The number of hours these students spend in the classroom requires us to have dedicated facilities. We also have to provide extensive equipment and the training competencies require us to have high ratios of instructors to students."

Bee staff writer Ken Carlson can be reached at 578-2321 or kcarlson@modbee.com.