Jessica Nijjar is a pre-allied health and biology major student at Fresno City College and she has always had an interest in the medical field since she was young, originally wanting to be a doctor then shifting to nursing.
Nijjar is pursuing her nursing career for her grandma.
“She’s always been there for me and supported my decisions. She’s a strong hearted woman and it just strengthens me to keep on going, but yeah just being able to make a difference in someone’s life for the better, is a fulfilling reward.”
According to Nijjar, at a young age she had a lot of family members that struggled with health issues and seeing this gave her a great interest in the medical world.
Nijjar said the bill could have benefited her not just financially but also with family responsibilities.
“It would have helped me stay closer to home. I take my grandma to her appointments and help out my parents as well,” Nijjar said.
According to Bill 895, it would have had 10 community colleges in California selected based on eligibility, to offer a bachelors of science in nursing degree, which is typically not available to community colleges, however it was denied by Newsom, University of California and California State University.
“I feel just offering a bachelors at community colleges would have bettered the program in a lot of different ways,” Nijjar said.
The bill’s objective was to make an easier and less costly alternative for students of California going for a BSN degree, rather than these students having to go to a more expensive university, that can be more difficult to get into.
“I feel like nursing school is very competitive, especially at the bachelor degree level,” Mackenzie Pouge, a nursing major at FCC, said. “A lot of nursing students go through the struggle of being accepted into nursing programs at all.”
In support of the now rejected bill, Nijjar argued that offering a BSN at the community college level would serve students more as it would for a significantly lower cost.
“Because a lot of students will end up in a huge amount of debt, or they’ll choose not to do it just because how how hard and costly it can be,” Nijjar said.
According to Newsom’s rejection letter, UC and CSU argued that if passed it would lead to more competition among resources and would undermine the collaboration of 2024 budget agreement.
The 2024 budget agreement had $60 million per year from 2025 through 2026 to 2028 through 2029. This money may be used for rebuilding nursing infrastructure grant program.
“I feel as though community colleges should have more funding and much more resources than we currently have,” Pouge said.
Those who supported the bill would argue that making it easier for nursing to pursue their career would allow for more nurses as a part of the workforce, which California has been in need of.
“It would have been one more option that I could have looked into and raised my chances of getting accepted into any nursing program and then I would have been able to get started on my career sooner rather than later,” Pouge said on how the bill could have benefited her.
According to Nijjar, the main struggle of an average nursing student might be figuring out the schooling system. She is taking two science courses this semester, each 5 units.
“I think it’s just the overall process especially when it comes to transferring and stuff, because there is so many different requirements we have to meet for certain colleges, whether it’s a UC or CSU,” Nijjar said.
